THE ISRAELI military has carried out over 140 air strikes against the Gaza Strip, threatening another full-scale military offensive against the blockaded coastal enclave amid escalating tensions there.
The Israeli army said on Thursday morning that it had pounded more than 140 targets in Gaza belonging to the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement. The attacks came after around 150 rockets were fired from Gaza into the occupied territories from late Wednesday into Thursday, the Israeli military added. It further claimed that the Israeli missile system Iron Dome had intercepted 25 rockets out of the 150 rockets, which activated sirens in the occupied territories over 125 times.
Hamas claimed responsibility for the fresh rocket attacks into the occupied lands, saying it was avenging the deaths of two fighters killed by Israeli tank fire in Gaza on Tuesday. ‘In response to Israeli aggression, the Palestinian resistance has launched a large number of rockets in recent hours at the enemy,’ Hamas said. ‘There was a promise to respond and now it has been fulfilled.’
Reacting to the renewed Israeli raids, Hamas spokesman Abd al-Latif al-Qanou said: ‘Israel will bear the responsibility for its aggression against the citizens of Gaza. The Palestinian resistance is in a state of self-defence and Israel will not succeed in forcing us to remain in this state.’
In Ramallah, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on the UN to make Israel stop its aggression against Gaza. Two Hamas members were killed in yet another Israeli military attack against the blockaded Gaza Strip. Hamas military wing, Ezzeddin al-Qassam Brigades, identified the victims of Tuesday’s Israeli strike as Ahmed Murjan and Abdel-Hafez al-Silawi.
Meanwhile, a senior Israeli army official told Israeli daily Haaretz on Thursday that Tel Aviv is approaching a new war on Gaza. We don’t see the end of the escalation. We are closing in on an operation in Gaza,’ he said. Top Israeli army officials and Prime Minister Binjamin Netanyahu are to hold talks with Minister of Military Affairs Avigdor Lieberman, army Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, head of the Shin Bet spy service Nadav Argaman and Meir Ben-Shabbat, head of the National Security Council.
Nearly 160 Palestinians have been killed and some 17,500 others wounded in the ‘March of Return’ demonstrations on the Gaza Israel border.