Israel strikes Gaza in response to overnight rocket attacks

IDF bombs Hamas positions in Gaza after five rockets launched towards Israel, leaving one home damaged.

By Pesach Benson, TPS

Israel struck two Hamas sites in the Gaza Strip early Wednesday morning in retaliation for overnight rocket fire.

Five rockets launched at Israel on Tuesday night were shot down by Iron Dome interceptors, an IDF spokesperson said. One house in Sderot was damaged by falling shrapnel.

In retaliation for the rocket attacks, Israel Air Force aircraft struck “an underground weapons workshop used by the chemical unit of the Hamas terror group and a site for processing rocket components,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

No terror group have claimed responsibility for the rocket fire. Israel has said it holds Hamas responsible for all attacks coming from the Strip. The launches were the first since May 14 as a five-day conflict with Palestinian Islamic Jihad came to an end.

The rockets came as Israeli soldiers began withdrawing from the Jenin refugee camp after a two-day operation to dismantle terror infrastructure.

One soldier, Sgt. David Yehuda Yitzchak, was killed late in the operation.

During the Operation, dubbed ‘Home and Garden,’ Israeli security forces discovered several bomb-making laboratories, a homemade rocket launcher, explosives in the UN-administered camp.

During that incursion, the IDF raised its level of alert along the Gaza border. Palestinian sources told the Tazpit Press Service on Monday that Hamas deployed its forces along the Gaza border to prevent disturbances and also thwarted at least two attempts to fire rockets.