Israeli military forces exchanged rocket fire with Palestinian militants in Gaza who were holed up in alleged weapons manufacturing and storage sites on Thursday.
The incident comes after Israeli military personnel launched a raid in the West Bank on Wednesday, resulting in at least 11 deaths. The latest round of violence was followed by a statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It said its fighters successfully struck a weapons manufacturing site in central Gaza that Hamas controlled.
Israeli-Gaza Rocket Exchange
The statement added that they also targeted a military compound that was owned by the Hamas Terrorist Organization that was located in the northern Gaza Strip. Officials claim that it was used as a naval weapons storage warehouse.
The IDF said on Thursday that five rockets that were fired from Gaza and headed for Israeli territory, including the cities of Ashkelon and Siderot, were intercepted while another rocket fell down in an open area.
The latest exchange comes after the West Bank airstrikes that killed 11 Palestinians in Nablus on Wednesday. The incident occurred during a raid that the Israeli military conducted, which resulted in at least 500 injured, said Palestinian officials, as per CNN.
Two militant groups noted that one of the dead targeted in the Nablus raid was a member of the Hamas terrorist group, while two others were Islamic Jihad commanders. In a statement, the Palestinian Red Crescent said that their teams dealt with 488 injured people during the occupation forces' invasion of Nablus.
The group said that this included 103 injured from live bullets, which were later taken to hospitals in the area. Other injuries included those who got struck with tear gas and shrapnel. Later, the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed the numbers released by the Red Crescent.
Rising Violence
The Nablus raid lasted about four hours and was conducted in broad daylight, which was unusual. This was because, as the IDF explained, there was intelligence regarding the location of the suspects. The Israeli military said that the targets were responsible for the death of an Israeli soldier, arguing that they posed an imminent threat.
Tor Wennesland, the United Nations Middle East envoy, traveled on Thursday to Gaza to meet with leaders of Hamas. The official, involved in mediation efforts to curb rising tension with Egyptian officials, said that he was disturbed about the cycle of violence in the region, according to BBC.
Before making the trip, Wennesland said that he was urging all sides involved in the conflict to refrain from taking steps that would further raise tensions in a volatile situation. So far, no specific militant group has taken responsibility for the Thursday rocket launches that prompted Israeli officials to sound sirens.
Witnesses in Palestine said that they observed at least eight rockets being fired before the Israeli military reported six projectiles. Recently, spokesman Abu Obeida said that the resistance in Gaza is only serving to escalate the enemy's crimes against the people in the West Bank, said Aljazeera.
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