The Israeli army announced on Monday new bombardments against Hamas positions in the Gaza Strip, in retaliation for the launching of explosive and incendiary balloons from the Palestinian enclave into Israeli territory.
“Combat jets, military planes and tanks have targeted Hamas military positions in the southern Gaza Strip” including “underground infrastructure,” the IDF said in a brief statement, adding that it had acted in “Response” to the continued throwing of explosive and incendiary balloons.
Israel has been bombing Gaza almost daily since August 6, after rockets and incendiary balloons were launched from Palestinian territory over the border, which sparked dozens of fires in Israel, reducing to ashes. crops and brush.
Despite a truce last year favored by the UN, Egypt and Qatar, Hamas and Israel, which have already fought three wars (2008, 2012, 2014), clash sporadically with rocket fire or the launching of incendiary balloons from Gaza; and strikes by the Israeli army, which considers these actions a violation of its sovereignty and a threat to its security.
According to Palestinian analysts, the shootings from Gaza are aimed at putting pressure on the Jewish state to allow the entry of the monthly financial aid from Qatar into the enclave, provided for in the truce agreement.
The new hostilities come ahead of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Jerusalem on Monday for a five-day tour of the Middle East focused on the normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, which the Palestinians oppose.