Jerusalem, February 10: Israeli warplanes have launched an overnight attack on the southern Gaza Strip, pounding an international airport in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory.
The air strike came Tuesday night when Israeli F-16 fighter jets targeted the Yasser Arafat International Airport in Dahaniya, Rafah.
Locals said the warplanes fired five missiles into the facility, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Israeli army spokesperson confirmed the strike and claimed that the attack came in retaliation for projectiles launched into the western Negev desert in recent days.
In a separate statement, the army threatened to “continue to operate firmly” against the Palestinian resistance fighters, claiming “Hamas is solely responsible for maintaining peace and quiet in the Gaza Strip.”
A week earlier, Israeli forces targeted the Gaza airport and a tunnel across the Gaza-Egypt border, leaving three Palestinians wounded.
The southern city of Rafah has been under constant Israeli air strikes that aims to disrupt Palestinian underground tunnels across the border with Egypt.
Israel accuses Palestinian fighters operating in the Gaza Strip of using the tunnels to smuggle and store arms. However, the Palestinians dismiss such allegations, describing the network as the last resort to bring in food, fuel and other vital commodities to keep the 1.5 million Gazans from suffocation under the Israeli-imposed blockade of the whole territory.
——-Agencies