Monday, February 13, 2023

IDF: Israeli Jets Strike Underground Hamas Facility In Central Gaza

IDF: Israeli jets strike underground Hamas facility in central Gaza


Israeli fighter jets targeted an underground weapons facility in the central Gaza Strip overnight Sunday-Monday in response to a rocket launch from the Hamas-ruled Palestinian enclave on Saturday evening, intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a short statement early Monday that the targeted facility produced raw materials for manufacturing rockets and was run by the Hamas terror group. 

The attack on the underground facility “harms Hamas’ ability” to produce weapons, the IDF said.

Shortly after the military confirmed the attack, rocket warning sirens blared in southern Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip, including Sderot and Kibbutz Nir Am. The alert also sounded in Kibbutz Ruhama, about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) east of Sderot, according to the IDF.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

On Saturday night, the military said a single rocket from Gaza was downed by the Iron Dome air defense system.

The rocket fire came amid heightened tensions in the region, and a day after three Israelis — including two young siblings aged five and seven — were killed in a car-ramming terror attack in East Jerusalem on Friday.

Tensions have been high as the IDF has pressed on with an anti-terror offensive mostly focused on the northern West Bank to deal with a series of attacks that have left 31 people in Israel dead in 2022, and another ten since the beginning of the year. Late last month, a Palestinian terrorist killed seven Israelis in shooting attack near a synagogue in Jerusalem’s Neve Yaakov neighborhood.

The IDF’s operation in the West Bank has netted more than 2,500 arrests in near-nightly raids. It also left 171 Palestinians dead in 2022, and another 43 since the beginning of the year, many of them while carrying out attacks or during clashes with security forces, though some were uninvolved civilians.

The military said in its statement Monday that it holds Hamas responsible for “security violations” carried out in Gaza against the State of Israel.


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