The Israeli army bombed Hamas positions in the southern Gaza Strip after rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave, security sources and the Israeli army said on Sunday, January 2, 2022.
In a brief message to the press, the Israeli army first indicated “carrying out strikes against terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip”, under the control of the armed Islamist movement Hamas since 2007 and the object of an Israeli blockade since.
“Fighter jets, helicopters and tanks hit a rocket manufacturing site and military posts belonging to the Hamas terrorist organization,” she said later on Sunday.
Palestinian security sources told AFP that a “site of the al-Qassam brigades (armed wing of Hamas, editor’s note) west of Khan Younès”, a town in the south of the Gaza Strip, had been targeted by “Israeli fighter jets”, also reporting artillery fire at a Hamas observation base in the northern enclave.
Israel and Gaza in ceasefire since May
On Saturday morning, two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip fell in the Mediterranean Sea, off the Israeli metropolis of Tel Aviv. The alarm sirens had not been triggered and the rocket interception system had not been activated, according to a statement from the Israeli army.
Sources within Hamas told AFP that the shooting “was due to a technical problem due to bad weather”. A Hamas spokesman condemned the Israeli strikes, calling for continued “defense of the Palestinian people and holy sites against occupation and settlers until victory.”
“Whoever targets the State of Israel with his missiles will assume the consequences,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Sunday at the opening of the weekly Council of Ministers.
An eleven-day war in May 2021 between Israel and Hamas, sworn enemies, their fourth since 2007. Since the entry into force of a fragile ceasefire, five projectiles (rockets or shells) had up to now fired from Gaza into Israeli territory, the lowest number in the six months after an Israel / Hamas war, according to the IDF annual report released on December 29.
