Israeli soldiers wounded a Palestinian man who attacked them with grenades on the northern Gaza border Thursday night.
The armed attacker was spotted approaching the border fence and threw explosives at Israel Defense Forces soldiers who arrived at the scene, the IDF said in a statement.
“A short time ago IDF lookouts identified an armed terrorist approaching the border fence in the northern Gaza Strip. The terrorist threw a number of grenades toward IDF soldiers. The soldiers, who had come to the area when the man was spotted, charged the attacker and wounded him. There were no injuries to our forces,” the IDF said.
The incident comes amid an uptick in violence on the border. Rockets were fired at Israel from the enclave late Wednesday and early Thursday, prompting Israeli reprisal attacks.
Thursday morning’s rocket attack was the sixth rocket fired at Israel from the enclave in the past week. One rocket was fired at southern Israel on Friday night, followed by three on Saturday night. Three of these projectiles were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system. One rocket struck outside a home in the southern town of Sderot, causing light damage, but no physical injuries.
The latest tit-for-tat fighting between Hamas and Israel continued throughout the night Thursday with Israeli planes striking a round of fresh targets in the Gaza Strip belonging to the terror group after a second rocket was fired from the coastal enclave toward Israeli towns.
The IDF confirmed that it has struck several “terror bases” in the Strip in the second set of sites targeted by airstrikes since midnight Wednesday.
The round of raids came in response to a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israel early Thursday morning, the IDF said. That attack came shortly after Israeli planes struck Hamas naval targets off the coast of the Strip, following an earlier rocket attack which landed in an open field in Israel.
The IDF said that warning sirens were activated near the Gaza border. There were no injuries in the rocket attacks.
The army said earlier that fighter jets and aircraft hit several “sea-based bases” in the north belonging to Hamas. The army said the strikes were in response to the rocket attack, as well as “continuing terror activities from the Strip.”
An army statement added, “The IDF will continue to oppose attempts to harm Israeli civilians and considers the Hamas terrorist organization responsible for what happens in and out of the Gaza Strip. ”
The Israel Defense Forces on Thursday blamed the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad for the recent increase in violence from the Gaza Strip and called for Hamas, the de facto ruler of the enclave, to rein in the terror group.
“We do not plan to accept terror attacks and rocket fire against our citizens,” the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee tweeted.
Adraee was referring to a number of rocket and mortar attacks directed against southern Israel and infiltration attempts along the border in recent days.
Rockets were fired at Israel from the enclave late Wednesday and early Thursday, prompting Israeli reprisal attacks.
There were no injuries in the Palestinian rocket attacks.
The Islamic Jihad is the second most powerful terror group in the Gaza Strip after Hamas. Israel has routinely accused the Iran-backed group of seeking to derail its unofficial ceasefire agreements with Hamas by carrying out attacks from Gaza.
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