The Israeli military conducted retaliatory airstrikes in the Gaza Strip late Wednesday night, following a rocket barrage from the coastal enclave earlier in the day and rising tensions in recent weeks, the army said.
Anti-aircraft fire directed at the attacking Israeli aircraft set off incoming rocket sirens in the communities of Zikim and Mavki’im just north of the Gaza Strip, and triggered the Iron Dome missile defense system, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
A 76-year-old woman suffered light-to-moderate injuries to her head and upper body after she fell while running to a bomb shelter in the community of Zikim, medics said.
“IDF fighter jets and aircraft attacked a number of targets in a military compound belonging to the Hamas terror group in the northern Gaza Strip. The attack was in response to the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip at Israeli territory earlier in the day,” the military said in a statement.
“The IDF will continue to act against attempts to harm citizens of Israel and sees the Hamas terror group as responsible for what is done in the Gaza Strip,” the army said.
Earlier in the evening, another false alarm — apparently caused by intense machine gun fire — sent hundreds of Israelis scrambling to bomb shelters south of the city of Ashkelon.
Palestinian media reported that terrorists in the Strip had directed anti-aircraft fire at Israeli drones, which triggered the IDF’s sensitive air defense systems.
Footage of the anti-aircraft fire was shared on Palestinian social media, as was a video of the Iron Dome interceptor missiles detonating in mid-air. The interceptors are designed to self-destruct in cases of a false alarm, where there is no incoming rocket to shoot down.
Moments before the alarms, Palestinian media reported that the Israeli Air Force had begun bombing Hamas positions throughout the Gaza Strip.
Outlets in the Strip said Israeli aircraft targeted sites in both the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis and Hamas’s “Ashkelon position” — from which the terror group has fired on the Israeli city of the same name — in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza.
The Israeli military did not immediately confirm the locations of its airstrikes.
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