Israeli plane hits militant targets in Gaza after rocket fire | News Today

JERUSALEM – The IDF said on Sunday morning it launched strikes against militant targets in the Gaza Strip, a day after rockets were fired from Hamas-ruled territory.

Video filmed in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip showed three huge explosions and fighter jets could be heard flying overhead. There was no immediate confirmation of any casualties.

The IDF said the attacks targeted a rocket manufacturing plant and a Hamas military post. He also blamed the militant Islamic group for any violence emanating from the territory he controls.

The airstrikes come in retaliation for two rockets fired from Gaza on Saturday that landed in the Mediterranean Sea off central Israel.

It was not clear whether the rockets were intended to strike Israel, but Gaza-based militant groups often test missiles towards the sea. No casualties were reported in the rocket attacks on Saturday.

With the exception of a single incident in September, there has been no cross-border rocket fire since a ceasefire ended an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in May.

The ceasefire, negotiated by Egypt and other mediators, was fragile. Militant group Hamas says Israel failed to take serious steps to ease the blockade it imposed on Gaza with help from Egypt when the Islamic movement took control of the coastal enclave in 2007 .

The tension is also high as other groups like the smaller but more outright Islamic Jihad threaten a military escalation if Israel does not end the administrative detention of a Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike for more. 130 days.

Palestinian militants in Gaza shot and slightly injured an Israeli civilian near the security fence on Wednesday, and Israel retaliated with tank fire targeting several Hamas sites in the first exchange of fire in months.