Israel launches fresh strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza

An Israeli soldier jumps off a tank in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Syria, August 3, 2020. /Reuters

Israel's military said Thursday it had carried out fresh overnight strikes on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, in response to incendiary balloons launched across the border from the Palestinian enclave.

The latest round of hostilities has seen firebombs attached to bunches of balloons floating into Israel, setting scrub land ablaze. Sometimes kites are used in the makeshift attacks.

Explosives tied to balloons and kites first emerged as a weapon in Gaza during intense protests in 2018, when the devices drifted across the border daily, causing thousands of fires in Israeli farms and communities.

Three such attacks were spotted in the past week from Gaza into Israel, each time triggering retaliatory strikes against Hamas positions.

Israel has closed a goods crossing with Gaza and slashed the territory's permitted coastal fishing zone, as well as launching air strikes on sites owned by the enclave's Islamist rulers Hamas, according to a statement issued by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) early Thursday.

"In response, a short while ago, IDF fighter jets and tanks struck a number of Hamas military targets in the Gaza Strip," said the statement.

Masked soldiers prepare flammable objects before attaching them to balloons to be flown towards Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. /AFP

The army said the strikes were aimed at a military compound and observation posts used by Hamas militants, who also fired a volley of rockets into the sea this week after repeated exchanges of fire.

A Gaza security source said Israeli warplanes had carried out several strikes on Hamas sites.

They said the strikes caused severe damage to the sites and some damage to citizens' homes, but did not report any injuries.

Israeli fire services in the south of the country reported 60 fires caused by balloons on Tuesday, and 24 on Wednesday, without recording any casualties.

Hamas and Israel have fought three wars since 2008.

Despite a truce last year backed by the UN, Egypt and Qatar, the two sides clash sporadically with rockets, mortar fire or incendiary balloons.

The Gaza Strip has a population of two million, more than half of whom live in poverty, according to the World Bank.

Palestinian analysts say fire from Gaza often aims to pressure Israel to give the green light for the transfer of Qatari financial aid into the strip.

(With input from AFP)