The Israeli air force struck a weapons factory in the Hamas-controlled area hours after a rocket was fired from Gaza.
“Earlier tonight, a launch was detected from the Gaza Strip and intercepted by the Iron Dome Aerial Defense System,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement obtained by the Legal Insurrection. “In response to this attack, IDF fighter jets struck a Hamas terrorist organization weapons manufacturing site in the Gaza Strip,” the statement added.
The rocket attack from Gaza came a day after Palestinians used Temple Mount loudspeakers meant for prayer calls to urge Hamas to target Israel. The Passover festivities in Jerusalem were marred by widespread violence against Jews by Palestinian mobs. On Sunday, at least five Jews were hurt by stone-pelting Palestinians on the Temple Mount.
The Hamas rocket was intercepted by the Iron Dome missile-defense system over southern Israel. The Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross “Magen David Adom said there were no reports of injuries following the rocket attack,” The Jerusalem Post confirmed.
The Times of Israel reported the IDF’s response to Hamas’s rocket fire:
The Israeli military struck targets in the Gaza Strip after midnight on Tuesday in response to a rocket fired from the Hamas-controlled enclave hours earlier.The rocket attack was the first in nearly four months, ending one of the longest periods of quiet on the Gaza border in years. The Israeli military said in a statement that it bombed a number of targets, including a site used by Hamas to manufacture weapons.Hamas-affiliated media reported that the Israeli airstrikes targeted a site operated by Palestinian factions west of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.Witnesses and security sources in the Gaza Strip reported no injuries from the air raid. “The IDF considers Hamas responsible for what unfolds in the Gaza Strip,” the army said.
The IDF operation takes place against the backdrop of surging Palestinian terror and rioting amid the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. “The tensions come amid a terror wave that claimed the lives of 14 people and as the one-year anniversary of the Gaza conflict approaches,” the Israeli TV channel i24News noted.
Tuesday’s IDF airstrike destroying Gaza weapons factory highlights Hamas’s efforts to rebuild its arsenal since the last armed conflict almost a year ago. In May 2021, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist groups fired more than 4,000 rockets aimed at Israeli towns and cities. The IDF responded by targeting terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, including terrorist bases, weapons depots, and terror tunnels.
Israeli analysts fear that Palestinian rioting on the Temple Mount could be a prelude to Hamas’s all-out terror attack against the Jewish State. “It’s only a matter of time before Gaza throws its hat in the ring,” Israeli commentator Dana Ben-Shimon predicted in her Tuesday column in the Israel Hayom newspaper. “The terrorist organization wants to be at the center of attention and is exploiting the events on the Temple Mount to that end,” she cautioned.
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