Israeli tank, aircraft hit Gaza after cross-border shots

JERUSALEM: Israel on Friday struck Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip with tank and aircraft fire after shots were fired at troops on the Israeli side of the border, the army said.

“No injuries to soldiers were reported,” it said in a statement.Palestinian security sources in Hamas-ruled Gaza told AFP that the Israeli fire hit Hamas military observation posts at three locations along the frontier.

They said there were no reports of Palestinian casualties.Palestinians in Gaza have for more than a year gathered at least weekly along the border for often-violent protests, calling on Israel to end its blockade of the enclave.

The Israeli statement did not say if there were mass protests taking place at the time of Friday’s incident.The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza later said in a statement that 15 people were wounded by Israeli fire during border demonstrations, including “two paramedics and one journalist”.

It gave no further information. At least 264 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forces since the protests began.The majority were killed during clashes, with others hit by tank fire or air strikes.

Two Israeli soldiers have been killed over the same period. Israel destroys family apartments of accused Palestinian killer: Israeli forces destroyed two apartments in the occupied West Bank on Friday that housed the family of a Palestinian accused of killing an Israeli woman in February, the army said.

Soldiers surrounded the apartment block in the flashpoint southern city of Hebron beginning late on Thursday. They then destroyed the two apartments that were home to the family of Arafat Irfaiya, 29, with the use of heavy construction equipment in the early hours of the morning.

Some clashes broke out between Palestinian residents and Israeli forces during the operation, AFP journalists reported. The murder of Ori Ansbacher, 19, reportedly stabbed multiple times, triggered shock and anger in Israel. Her body was found on February 7 in a forest southeast of Jerusalem and Irfaiya was arrested two days later in a raid in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Israeli authorities labelled it a “nationalist” attack, meaning linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.