Israeli Air Strike Hits Hamas Complex in Gaza

Arab World

February 13th, 6:39am

Asharq Al-Awsat

Israel said it had launched air strikes against a Hamas complex in Gaza in response to a rocket fired over the weekend © MAHMUD HAMS / AFP

Israel hit Gaza with air strikes on Monday in response to a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave at the weekend, the army said, as unrest persisted in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Red Crescent said one person was killed in a pre-dawn Israeli army raid in Nablus in the northern West Bank, the scene of near-relentless violence over the past year. The army did not immediately comment on the Nablus raid. But in Gaza, it said it had struck "an underground complex containing raw materials used for the manufacturing of rockets belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization". The strikes were launched were "in response to the Saturday rocket launch from Gaza into Israel," the army added in a statement, AFP reported. Following the Israeli strikes, air raid sirens sounded in communities in near the Gaza border, the military said. There were no reported casualties in Gaza or Israel following the latest round of missile fire. But Israeli-Palestinian conflict is enduring a dramatic increase in violence. Since the start of the year, the conflict has claimed the lives of 47 Palestinian adults and children, including militants and civilians, following the latest death in Nablus. Nine Israeli civilians, including three children, and one Ukrainian civilian have been killed over the same period, according to an AFP tally based on official sources from both sides.

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