Gaza City, October 01: Israeli warplanes bombed smuggling tunnels in southern Gaza overnight after a rocket was fired from the Hamas-run territory, but neither attack caused injuries, officials and medics said on Thursday.
The air raid struck two tunnels on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, the Israeli Army said. Palestinian medics reported no casualties.
Late yesterday, militants in Gaza fired a rocket into Israel, with the projectile causing no injuries or damage.
And near the Kissufim crossing in the south, Palestinian gunmen fired mortars into Israel and the army responded with tank fire, again with no casualties, medics said.
It marked the latest violence along Gaza’s border, which has been mostly quiet since a war that Israel launched on Hamas in Gaza on December 27 in response to rocket fire ended with mutual ceasefires on January 18.
The ceasefire has largely held despite violations by both sides, but the past few weeks have seen an increase in both rocket fire and Israeli strikes.
Separately, a 20-year-old Palestinian man, Tamer Nahal, was killed in an electrocution accident in one of the smuggling tunnels, medics said.
Since Israel and Egypt sealed Gaza off to all but basic goods following the Islamist Hamas movement’s seizure of the territory in June 2007, a vast trade involving hundreds of tunnels has developed along the border.
–Agencies