The Israel Air Force carried out airstrikes on several targets in the Gaza Strip Tuesday night, after balloons with explosives were flown into Israel earlier in the day.
The Israel Defense Forces said its aircraft hit “a number of terror targets in a Hamas military compound in the northern Gaza Strip.”
There were no immediate reports of casualties in the Strip.
The pro-Hamas al-Risala newspaper said an unmanned Israeli aircraft hit a site that belongs to “the Palestinian resistance” in Gaza.
The strikes came as an Egyptian delegation visited the Strip in a bid to broker a fresh deal to restore calm to the restive border region, which has seen an uptick in violence in recent days.
Earlier on Tuesday, two bombs tied to balloons were flown over the Gaza border and exploded inside communities in southern Israel. There were no injuries or damage. On Monday, three bombs exploded near communities and last week an explosive tied to a balloon damaged a home in the region.
Israel has carried out five rounds of strikes in the last four days in response to the balloons.
In an ongoing effort to calm tensions between Israel and Hamas, a senior Egyptian delegation visited both the Jewish state and the Strip this week.
Recent weeks have seen a dramatic increase in the level of violence along the Gaza border, with near nightly riots and a return of airborne arson attacks, which had waned in light of a de facto ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas at the end of last year.
In these nightly demonstrations, led by so-called “confusion units,” participants generally set off loud explosives, burn tires and throw rocks at Israeli troops on the other side of the security fence. The Israeli soldiers typically respond with tear gas and, in some cases, live fire.
The latest riots came after the release last week of a report commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council on Israel’s handling of the clashes that alleged there is evidence Israeli soldiers committed crimes again humanity. The inquiry investigated possible violations from the start of the protests on March 30, 2018, through December 31.
Israeli leaders angrily rejected the findings of the UN probe, calling it “hostile, deceitful and biased.”
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