Israeli warplanes strike Gaza after new rocket attack

Israeli warplanes strike Gaza after new rocket attack
Palestinian security sources said several Israeli missiles were fired at farmland east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
1 min read
19 February, 2018
The latest airstrikes followed fierce exchanges over the weekend. [Getty]

Israeli warplanes launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip early on Monday after a rocket fired from the besieged enclave struck southern Israel.

Palestinian security sources said several Israeli missiles were fired at farmland east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

Israeli "fighter jets targeted underground infrastructure in the southern Gaza Strip, in response to the projectile that was launched at Israel earlier," an Israeli army statement said.

No casualties were reported in either incident.

The latest airstrikes followed fierce exchanges over the weekend in which Israeli ground forces killed two Palestinian teenagers in the enclave in cross-border fire.

Warplanes also pounded 18 Hamas facilities in two waves of airstrikes, according to the Israeli military.

Those raids were in response to an explosion Saturday in which four Israeli soldiers inspecting the border fence were injured by an apparent Palestinian booby trap.

Two of the men were severely wounded but their lives were not in danger, the army said.

The blast and the retaliatory fire marked one of the most serious escalations in Gaza since Hamas and Israel fought a war in 2014.

Israel's Operation Protective Edge killed over 2,200 Palestinians and destroyed more than 18,000 homes.