JERUSALEM (JTA) — Two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on what it said was a terrorist rocket-launching squad, in a day of escalating attacks between Israel and Gaza.
Monday evening’s strike came after two rockets were launched from Gaza and landed in southern Israel, causing no injuries or damage.
On Monday morning, Israel’s Air Force fired on what it called a terrorist squad of snipers operating near the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip.
Two Palestinian men were killed and four were injured in the earlier Monday strikes, according to the Palestinian Ma’an news service, which identified the casualties, in their 20s, as members of Islamic Jihad’s military wing, the Al-Quds Brigades. Ma’an said they were “en route to take part in a militant operation” against Israeli soldiers.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that the squad killed in Monday’s action was among those responsible for recent sniper attacks along Israel’s security fence with Gaza, including one late last week in which snipers fired on an Israeli farmer working in his fields near Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel.
Military sources said the incident is not related to Monday’s attack on the Israel-Egypt border in which one civilian was killed and two terrorists shot dead.
Overnight Sunday, Israeli aircraft hit what the military said was a weapons manufacturing facility in southern Gaza and a terror activity site in central Gaza. Five Palestinians, including a woman and child, were injured in the attacks.
The sites were targeted in response to the rocket fire toward southern Israel, the IDF said. This year, more than 275 rockets have been fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip, Israel’s military said.
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