IDF retaliates. The Israeli army increased the pressure on Thursday, August 13, on Hamas by stepping up air strikes and cutting off access to fuel in the Gaza Strip in an attempt to stem a wave of incendiary balloon launches from this Palestinian enclave.
Over the past week, the IDF has claimed responsibility for a series of nightly strikes against positions of the ruling armed Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip in response to incendiary balloon fire some of which is behind it. brush fires in southern Israel.
"The continuous sending of incendiary balloons"
In an attempt to dissuade these shots, the Israeli authorities, who have been imposing a blockade on this Palestinian territory for more than a decade, have in recent hours successively reduced from 15 to 8 nautical miles the Mediterranean fishing zone for Gazans, carried out air strikes and halted fuel deliveries to the enclave.
Israel had already closed since Tuesday the post of Kerem Shalom, from which the goods enter Gaza, a tongue of land populated by two million inhabitants, more than half of whom live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank, excluding however, fuel deliveries and the delivery of essential humanitarian aid.
In response to a series of explosive balloons launched from Gaza into Israel last week, our forces struck Hamas terror targets in Gaza overnight.
We will continue to operate against any attempt to harm Israeli civilians.
But on Thursday morning, the Israeli Defense Ministry announced "to stop the importation of fuel into the Gaza Strip" due to "the continuous sending of incendiary balloons" from the enclave.
During the night, "fighter jets and tanks hit" a "military site used for Hamas naval forces, underground infrastructure and observation posts," the IDF said.
Investigation
The strikes did not cause any injuries, but an "missile that did not explode, fired by the Israeli air force", was found in a school in the Shati refugee camp, a Gazan security source told. AFP, specifying that "the teams of deminers were there".
A spokesperson for the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Adnan Abu Hasna, confirmed that the missile had been discovered in a school administered by this branch of the UN.
After five months of closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which relatively spared the Gaza Strip, local schools resumed their activities last Saturday. "We have closed the school and are awaiting the outcome of an investigation to determine what happened and assess the extent of the damage," Abu Hasna told AFP. For its part, the Israeli army is investigating this missile, a military spokeswoman told AFP.
And the regional council of Shaar Hanegev, a group of Israeli municipalities located on the edge of the Gaza Strip, reported at least one incendiary bouquet, an explosive charge tied to balloons injected with helium, which had landed on the Israeli side. Thursday morning.
A message"
Palestinian analysts say shootings from Gaza are often aimed at putting pressure on the Jewish state to give the green light for Qatar's financial aid to enter the enclave, provided for in the truce agreement .
These incendiary balloons are a "message" from Hamas to Israel to try "to improve economic conditions in the enclave, ease the blockade and implement part of the agreements concluded by the two camps via Egypt", Jamal Al-Fadi, professor of political science at al-Azhar University in Gaza, told AFP this week.
With AFP
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