Israel Launches Aerial Aggression on Gaza Strip

According to Hebrew-language media reports, Israeli warplanes launched airstrikes in the early hours of Saturday against several sites in the northern parts of Gaza, in response to incendiary balloons allegedly sent toward the occupied Palestinian territories from the blockaded coastal enclave a day earlier.

The reports further said that residents of Gaza and settlers of Israeli communities near the border heard blasts. 

Separately, Palestinian outlets reported that Israeli warplanes at about 00:30 a.m. local time on Saturday hit some Hamas sites in Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip and that the jets were purportedly being shot at with machine guns.

Furthermore, Lebanon’s al-Manar news website, while confirming the overnight attack, said an Israeli combat drone also attacked an agricultural area near Beit Lahia city in the northern Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military has not yet commented on the aerial aggression, which came hours after four bush fires were ignited in southern occupied Palestinian territories by incendiary balloons allegedly launched from the enclave.

Israeli authorities said that three of the fires ignited in the Kissufim forest, and another one in the Be’eri forest, both located on the border of the regime and Gaza.

Tel Aviv launched a brutal bombing campaign against the besieged Gaza Strip on May 10, following Palestinian retaliation against violent raids on worshipers at al-Aqsa Mosque and the regime’s plans to force a number of Palestinian families out of their homes at the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East al-Quds.

About 260 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli offensive.

In response, Palestinian resistance movements, chief among them Hamas, launched Operation al-Quds Sword and fired more than 4,000 rockets and missiles into the occupied territories, killing 12 Israelis.

Apparently caught off guard by the unprecedented barrage of rockets from Gaza, Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire on May 21, which Palestinian resistance movements accepted with Egyptian mediation.

Gaza has been under Israeli siege since June 2007, which has caused a decline in living standards.