Israeli Airstrikes Target Gaza

Gaza Strip, Palestine – The Israeli Air Force bombed Gaza early Tuesday morning after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israel was intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system on Monday night. Israeli planes targeted a site run by Hamas, the political authority in the blockaded and besieged Gaza Strip. No injuries or deaths were reported.

Regional tensions are high between the Israelis and Palestinians with a recent wave of violence on both sides claiming dozens of casualties. Since the beginning of the year, Israeli forces have killed at least 41 Palestinians, fatally shooting six youth in two days last week. Meanwhile, in the recent months, four lone-wolf attacks by Palestinian or Arab-Israelis have killed 14 Israelis and injured dozens.

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Last Friday, Israeli police drew international condemnation for storming the Al-Aqsa Mosque, injuring hundreds, and detaining 400 worshippers in the middle of Ramadan, further adding to the rise in tensions. Similar Israeli raids on the mosque have since happened daily, prompting a wave of 150 calls in 48 hours from international mediators pressing Hamas to not retaliate.

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No person or group has taken responsibility for firing the rocket from Gaza that was intercepted by Iron Dome. The warning sirens were activated in the surrounding areas of Gaza and Israeli media announced that two explosions were heard after the sirens sounded. The Israeli Army Radio said that a state of alert was declared in Eshkol, near Gaza, for fear of renewed rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.

Three Israeli bombs hit a building that the Israeli military says was a weapons manufacturing site belonging to Hamas in the west of Khan Yunis governorate in the southern Gaza Strip. The building suffered great damage with no reports of any injuries or deaths.

Hamas’ armed branch, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, stated that they shot anti-aircraft fire toward Israeli warplanes that flew over the Gaza Strip.

The Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated places in the world, has been under a suffocating siege since 2007, when Israel imposed a land, air, and sea blockade of Gaza. During this year’s Land Day, Unicorn Riot reported from the Gaza Strip, where demonstrators at the Port of Gaza called for international support to end the siege of Gaza.