One of the rockets was intercepted and three others “exploded inside the Gaza Strip“, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had said earlier Thursday.
“In response… IDF fighter jets targeted overnight (Friday) an underground military site in the Gaza Strip used as a rocket developing and manufacturing complex”, the military said.
The facility belonged to Hamas, it added.
The impoverished Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians, has been under Israeli blockade since 2007 when Iran-backed Hamas seized power from the secular Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
The rocket launches on Thursday were the first since a three-day conflict in August between Israel and another Iran-backed militant group, Islamic Jihad.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for Thursday’s launches, which came hours after a final vote count gave former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies a clear majority in parliament after elections.
On Thursday in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Jenin, Israeli forces killed Farouq Salameh, an “operative belonging to the Islamic Jihad”, during a raid, the army said, blaming him for several attacks targeting its forces.
(AFP)
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