Reports: Several Gaza terrorists killed in Israeli strikes

Several Palestinian terrorists were killed in the IDF’s retaliatory raids in Gaza, sources reported.  

By: World Israel News Staff

Several Palestinian terrorists were killed over the weekend during IDF and Israel Air Force (IAF) raids on Hamas targets, news sites reported.

Responding to a bomb that wounded four IDF soldiers near the Gaza border, IAF fighter jets struck 18 Hamas military targets, including weapons manufacturing infrastructure, a terror tunnel in the Zaytun area and military compounds near Deir El Balah and Khan Yunis.

In addition, an IDF tank targeted two observation posts on the border.

The Israeli 0404 news site reported that an IDF tank fired at an armed terror cell that approached the Gaza border fence, killing three of the four cell members. The fate of the fourth terrorist is unknown.

The Palestinians’ official Wafa news agency reported that two Palestinians were killed in an airstrike on a location east of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Israeli artillery, bombing a location in the Nahda neighborhood in Rafah, injured two Palestinians, one of them seriously, Wafa reported.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum stated that the terror group places “full responsibility [on Israel] for the repercussions of the continuous Israeli escalation against Palestinian people and Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip.”

Barhoum referred to the scale of the IDF’s raids on Gaza, which he called “Israeli aggression targeting resistance sites,” as indicative of the “pre-planned Israeli intention to escalate the situation in Gaza.”

“[Israel] has to recognize that it is the aggressive side and the Palestinian resistance, which has previously taught lessons to the occupation, will not give up its duty in protecting its people. It will responsibly act to defend the Palestinians and repel any aggression against them,” Barhoum said.

IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus said that Hamas used the Friday riots it regularly orchestrates to place the bomb.

“Hamas organizes riots and so called ‘demonstrations’ along the fence with Israel regularly. The IED that wounded four IDF soldiers was placed under the cover of yesterday’s riot, attached to a flag. We hold Hamas responsible for all aggression from Gaza,” he stated.

He further charged Hamas with staging fake demonstrations and using children and the disabled “as pawns” in a concerted effort to “divert attention away from their own failures.”

The latest flare-up on the border with Gaza occurred when an explosive device detonated near IDF troops adjacent to the security fence in the southern Gaza Strip. Four IDF soldiers were wounded in the attack. Two of them were severely injured, one moderately injured, and another was lightly injured. The soldiers were evacuated to a hospital to receive medical treatment.

This attack is considered the most severe since Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014.

“Hamas is responsible for the improvised explosive device that wounded the soldiers, the IDF stated. “The IDF will continue to hold Hamas accountable for all aggression emanating from the Gaza Strip.”