Army responds with airstrikes: Hamas fires rockets at Israel

Army responds with airstrikes
Hamas fires rockets at Israel

The situation in Israel is getting worse. After a wave of terror in recent weeks, clashes in Jerusalem have recently exacerbated tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. Now the sirens are wailing again in Israel.

The Israeli armed forces carried out airstrikes on the Palestinian Mediterranean enclave on Thursday night after rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. According to eyewitnesses, Israel attacked a number of targets in central Gaza. It was initially unclear whether there were victims. According to the Israeli army, a rocket had previously been fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip. At least four more rockets followed later. Debris from the first rocket fell into the yard of a house in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, police said late Wednesday evening. So nobody was injured.

It was the first time in months that a missile fired from Gaza had struck Israeli territory. A rocket was fired from the Palestinian coastal area on Monday evening, but was intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. In response to Monday’s rocket attack, the Israeli army attacked targets in the Gaza Strip.

The radical Islamist Hamas militia ruling in the Gaza Strip condemned Israel’s renewed attacks. These would only increase “Resolve” and “Resistance”. Hamas will “defend our holy sites in Jerusalem, no matter how great the sacrifices may be,” a Hamas spokesman said.

Tensions rise again

Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have recently increased significantly. There had been a series of violent clashes around the Temple Mount in Jerusalem over the weekend. More than 170 people were injured there between Friday and Sunday, most of them Palestinian protesters. The situation in Jerusalem’s old town has been particularly tense in recent days because the Muslim month of fasting, Ramadan, coincides with the Jewish festival of Passover and Easter this year. The Temple Mount is sacred to all three monotheistic religions. Jewish believers are allowed to visit the square in front of the Al-Aqsa Mosque at certain times, but they are not allowed to pray there.

On Wednesday, Israeli police prevented hundreds of ultra-nationalist Jewish demonstrators from entering the Muslim part of Jerusalem’s Old City. The radical Islamist Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, warned on Sunday that “Al-Aqsa belongs to us and only to us”. She will defend the Palestinians’ right to pray there.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres was “deeply concerned about the deterioration of the situation in Jerusalem,” his spokesman said in New York on Wednesday. “He is in contact with all parties to defuse tensions and prevent inflammatory actions and rhetoric.”

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