Three rockets were fired toward Israeli communities north of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday afternoon, in the second such attack from the Palestinian enclave in as many days, the army said.
In response, the Israel Defense Forces targeted two Hamas observation posts in northern Gaza.
“An IDF tank attacked two military posts belonging to the Hamas terror group in the northern Gaza Strip. This attack was carried out in response to the rocket launches at Israeli territory,” the army said in a statement.
Palestinian media reported that several people were injured in the Israeli retaliatory strike, but this was denied by the Strip’s Hamas-run health ministry, which said that there were no casualties.
The projectiles fired from Gaza appeared to have landed in open fields in the Hof Ashkelon region of southern Israel.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service.
A police sapper was called to an agricultural field in the Hof Ashkeloon
The rocket attack triggered sirens in the communities of Netiv Ha’asara and Yad Mordechai, sending hundreds of residents running to bomb shelters.
In the predawn hours of Wednesday morning, the Israeli Air Force launched strikes on 15 targets belonging to the Hamas terror group, which rules the Gaza Strip, in response to an attack earlier in the night in which terrorists fired two rockets at the southern cities of Ashkelon and Ashdod, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was holding an election rally.
The IDF said the targets included “a number of targets in a military base producing arms, a number of targets in a compound belonging to the naval forces and a terror tunnel belonging to the Hamas terror group.” The army said it held Hamas responsible for the rocket fire, as it is the de facto ruler of the enclave.
Palestinian sources reported heavy strikes and explosions in Beit Lahiya just north of Gaza City, Deir el-Balah in central Gaza and in Khan Younis in the south. There were no reports of injuries.
The IDF reprisal strikes came after Netanyahu, who is also defense minister, met with army chiefs, along with the heads of the Mossad and the Shin Bet security agency, at the military headquarters in Tel Aviv
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