For the second time in less than 24 hours IAF jets struck Hamas positions in the southern Gaza Strip following rocket fire on Thursday evening.
The military said that jets struck an “underground infrastructure and a naval target” belonging to Hamas in the southern Gaza Strip as well as “a terrorist military compound in the northern Gaza Strip.”
According to Palestinian media in the coastal enclave, the strikes targeted Hamas sites in Khan Yunis and Rafiah in the south, as well as targets in Beit Lahia in the northern part of the Strip.
The IDF said that a projectile was fired towards Kibbutz Kfar Azza near the Gaza border earlier in the evening. A local regional government spokesperson said that there were no injuries or damage after the projectile struck an open field.
The rocket fire on Thursday came hours after Israeli jets struck a Hamas weapons production facility in the coastal enclave following a rocket fired towards the city of Sderot around 2.30 a.m. The rocket was intercepted by the Iron Dome system.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj.-Gen. Kamil Abu Rokon announced that in response to the rocket fire, the fishing zone would be reduced from 15 to 10 nautical miles until further notice.
The IDF holds Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in a 2007 coup, responsible for all violence there.
The “terrorist group Hamas is responsible for what occurs in the Gaza Strip and what emanates from it, and that it will bear the consequences of actions against Israeli citizens,” the IDF said in a statement.
Late in the afternoon on Thursday the IDF said it arrested three armed Palestinians who were attempting to infiltrate into southern Israel from the northern Gaza Strip.
The previous day an Israeli aircraft fired and struck an armed Palestinian carrying what seemed like an assault rifle. He was spotted by IDF reconnaissance and observation posts approaching the border fence.
The rocket fire and infiltration attempts broke two weeks of relative quiet in southern Israel when IAF jets struck Hamas targets in response to three rockets fired from the Strip. All three were intercepted by the Iron Dome.