RTThu, 14 Mar 2019 16:14 UTC
© Israeli Air Force
Israeli aircraft bombed Gaza after two rockets allegedly fired from there targeted Tel Aviv. No casualties were reported in the rocket attack.
Explosions were reported in Khan Younis, on the south side of Gaza, early Friday local time. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was striking
"terrorist targets."The attack comes after two missiles were registered incoming from Gaza on Thursday evening, with air-raid sirens going off in Tel Aviv. Initial reports said the Israeli Iron Dome defense system shot down one of the missiles, while the other hit an open area, but the IDF later denied them, RT's Paula Slier reported.
The Israeli government has called for diplomats from Qatar and Egypt to leave Gaza
"as soon as possible," Slier reported, adding that Gaza was bracing for retaliatory airstrikes. Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs Gaza, has reportedly evacuated many of its buildings and declared an emergency.
Israeli media reported that Islamic Jihad, not Hamas, claimed responsibility for the rocket attack. Islamic Jihad quickly denied responsibility, Slier says. So did Hamas, apparently, with a group official telling Israeli media that Hamas is
"not interested in an escalation" and does not know who fired the two rockets.
While no group claimed responsibility for the attack, Israeli Education Minister and member of the security cabinet Naftali Bennett told RT he believes Hamas bears responsibility for the incident.
"Hamas has been shooting rockets at the southern part of Israel for roughly a year now and now they shot two rockets at the Tel Aviv area. It's time to defeat Hamas, it's time to demilitarize the Gaza Strip," he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conducted an emergency meeting with his security leaders at IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv in the wake of the attack. The army heads reportedly agreed on a
"strong, but measured" response. Meanwhile, in an extremely rare move, Hamas reportedly offered its assistance to Israel in finding the perpetrators of the attack.
Thursday's incident is the first time since the 2014 war that rockets from Gaza have come anywhere near Tel Aviv.
Comment: The timing of the strike allegedly by Islamic Jihad militants, is certainly suspicious, as is the uncharacteristic targeting of Tel Aviv. Did Bibi have infiltrators create a false flag incident so he can polish up his "tough guy" credentials ahead of the elections? The attacks are also a convenient distraction from his
corruption charges.
The IDF has hit the Gaza Strip with over 100
missile strikes:
© (L) Israel Defense Forces / Twitter; (R) Mohammed Salem / Reuters100 missiles rain down on Gaza March 14, 2019
A Hamas HQ in Gaza's downtown Rimal district, a rocket-manufacturing site and militant training ground, were among the targets hit, according to the military.
The airstrikes were made in retaliation to rockets launched from Gaza into Israeli territory, towards Tel Aviv. Both rockets were intercepted and destroyed by the Israeli Iron Dome missile defense system.
"Hamas terror group bears the responsibility for everything going on in and out of Gaza," the IDF said.
After the IDF raid into Gaza, Hamas fired two more rockets into Israel on Friday, both of which were also destroyed mid-air, the military reported. Aerial attack warning sirens were heard in the city of Sderot and the Sha'ar HaNegev municipality near the Gaza border.
Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett
blames Hamas for firing two rockets into Israel
"Hamas has been shooting rockets at the southern part of Israel for roughly a year now and now they shot two rockets at the Tel Aviv area. It's time to defeat Hamas, it's time to demilitarize the Gaza Strip," he told RT.
Bennett blamed Arabs for turning Gaza into a failed state, to which Israel now must retaliate.
"When we handed it over to the Arabs, they turned it into a radical Islamic terror state and now it's time to fight back against that state and we will."
The minister dismissed as "utter nonsense" the argument that both sides have been equally responsible for the violence that is raging in the region.
"We left Gaza. We want peace. The moment they stop shooting missiles at my children's school and kindergarten is the moment there will be peace."
Bennett, who is a member of the Israeli Security Cabinet and a proponent of his own version of a one-state solution, also brushed off international calls for Israel to stop its rampant settlement construction.
"As long as it's up to me, I would build for Jews anywhere in Israel, because this is our home. I would build much more Jewish communities within our land."
Hamas, the Palestinian militant movement controlling Gaza, and Israel have been locked in a violent confrontation for years. Israel calls Hamas terrorists, whose continued influence and attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians justifies whatever military action Israel choses to inflict on Palestinian territory. The militants pose as a guerrilla force fighting for the liberation of Palestinian lands and people from Israeli occupation and oppression by whatever means they deem necessary.
The situation surrounding Gaza has been tense since last year, when Palestinians began regular protests, which occasionally escalate into riots, on the wall that Israel built to separate the area. Israel is accused of using excessive force against the protesters, with dozens of people killed and hundreds injured by snipers. The Israelis insist that the protests are a ploy by Hamas to give cover to attacks on Israel and undermine the Jewish nation's reputation.
UPDATE 15/03/2019: Hamas
vows to find perpetrators of rogue rocket attack on Tel Aviv:
The statement follows Israel Defence Force spokesman Avichay Adraee stating that Israeli troops attacked around 100 targets in the Gaza Strip on Friday morning in response to the 14 March shelling of Tel Aviv from Palestinian territory.
The Palestinian Hamas militant group, which openly calls for Israel's destruction, has pledged to take action against those who launched rockets on Tel Aviv on Thursday.
"We are following up on the firing of rockets from Gaza against the national consensus and the ministry will take measures against the violators," the Hamas-run Interior Ministry said in a statement on Friday.
The statement comes as the Times of Israel quoted an unnamed Hamas official as saying that the group "has no interest in an escalation" with Israel. The official added he "has no idea" who fired rockets toward Tel Aviv on 14 March.
Daoud Shehab, spokesman for the Palestinian terrorist group Islamic Jihad (PIJ), for his part, rejected reports of the PIJ being behind the rocket fire, slamming them as "baseless lies and claims".
He also pointed out that his group is "committed to the ceasefire understandings [between Hamas and the Jewish state]" as long as Israel "halts its aggression against the Palestinian people".
Earlier on Friday, Israel's Kan public broadcaster and Palestinian media reported that Tel Aviv and Hamas had agreed on a ceasefire after the Thursday rocket fire. Israel has not confirmed the reports.
Israel Defence Force spokesman Avichay Adraee, in turn, wrote on his Twitter page that "in response to the rocket fire at Israel, some 100 [Hamas] terrorist targets have been hit across the Gaza Strip".
The rockets fired toward Tel Aviv were the first such shelling since 2014, and they reportedly did not hit residential areas and caused no direct injury.
Hamas seeks the creation of an independent state of Palestine and wants Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories it occupied after the 1967 war. The movement, which is blacklisted by Israel as a terrorist organisation and repeatedly exchanged rocket strikes with Tel Aviv, governs the Gaza Strip independently of the Palestinian Authority.
Comment: The timing of the strike allegedly by Islamic Jihad militants, is certainly suspicious, as is the uncharacteristic targeting of Tel Aviv. Did Bibi have infiltrators create a false flag incident so he can polish up his "tough guy" credentials ahead of the elections? The attacks are also a convenient distraction from his corruption charges.
The IDF has hit the Gaza Strip with over 100 missile strikes: Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett blames Hamas for firing two rockets into Israel
UPDATE 15/03/2019: Hamas vows to find perpetrators of rogue rocket attack on Tel Aviv: