The Israeli army announced on Friday evening new bombardments against Hamas positions in the Gaza Strip, in retaliation for the launching of incendiary balloons from the Palestinian enclave into Israeli territory.
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"Fighter jets, military helicopters and tanks have targeted Hamas positions in the Gaza Strip" including "a naval defense system used by Hamas, underground infrastructure and observation posts , " he said. The Israeli army in a brief statement adding that it had acted in "response" to the continued launching of incendiary balloons. The Palestinian Red Crescent, for its part, said that a pregnant woman and a three-year-old child were injured in the shelling and taken to hospital.
These strikes come the day after the announcement of an agreement to normalize relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, lambasted by Palestinians, including Islamists Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. But over the past week, the IDF has claimed responsibility for a series of nocturnal attacks on Hamas positions, in response to incendiary balloon fire, some of which have sparked brush fires in southern 'Israel who, however, did not claim any casualties.
In response to the projectile throws, Israel also closed the Kerem Shalom post on Tuesday, where goods enter Gaza, a spit of land populated by two million people, more than half of whom live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank. Hamas and Israel have fought three wars (2008, 2012, 2014) since the takeover of the Gaza Strip by this Islamist movement in 2007. Despite a truce last year, favored by the UN, Egypt and Qatar, the two sides clash sporadically with rockets, mortar shells or incendiary balloons from Gaza and strikes by the Israeli army in retaliation.