Israel has pelted the positions of Palestinian militants with tank fire after five rockets were launched from Gaza without inflicting any damage. The exchange of fire comes after a day of mass Palestinian protests.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have confirmed that its tanks shelled "a number of Hamas military posts" in Gaza in retaliation to an earlier attack by Palestinians that saw them firing five rockets towards Israeli territory.

The rockets landed inside the Eshkol region along the border with Gaza, triggering sirens in the area shortly after midnight. The local authorities said the rockets did not inflict any damage or casualties, striking open areas.

Funny how those 'Hamas rockets' generally seem to miss such easy targets. Once in while they seem to get lucky (keeps up the 'terrorist threat credibility). Happily, it gives Israel the excuse to unload tons of precision missiles against the imprisoned Gaza population.

It's unclear if the Israeli retaliatory strike resulted in any damage to the militant group that has been ruling the besieged Gaza since 2007 amid an ongoing blockade of the stretch of land along the Mediterranean by Israel and Egypt.

It is the first cross-border fire incident since earlier this week, which saw two days of heavy bombing by Israel in response to a missile attack from Gaza that hit a home injuring seven Israelis on Monday.

© ReutersFlame and smoke are seen during an Israeli air strike in Gaza City March 25, 2019.

Israeli planes bombarded what they claimed were Hamas positions in Gaza. PM Netanyahu ordered an infantry brigade and artillery battalion to move to the Gaza border on Monday. The bombing continued into Tuesday, as the situation risked spiraling into an all-out war, with the Israeli PM hinting at a potential military invasion of Gaza.

The violence has subsided due to Egyptian mediation and a shaky truce held during Saturday's mass protests along the Gaza border. While the IDF sang rare praise for Hamas, commending it for exercising restraint during the rally that marked the one-year anniversary of the Great March of Return protests, the protests still did not end casualty-free for the Palestinians. The Gaza Health Ministry reported that three 17-year-old teenagers were killed in the protests while about 300 people were injured.

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US and EU regulators had at least two years prior warning of irregularities with aircraft nose-angle control in the Boeing 737 MAX fleet, especially in the conditions which led to both recent air disasters, new documents show.

The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) and the European Aviation and Space Agency (EASA) both certified the aircraft as "safe," anticipating that additional procedures and training would prepare pilots for the "unusual" situations in which they would need to manually control the plane's nose angle.

However, the published flight manual did not reference these "unusual" situations, according to a copy from American Airlines seen by Reuters, with tragic consequences and an overall death toll of 346 lives.

When the Boeing 737 MAX achieves speeds greater than 230 knots (265mph or 425kph), with its flaps retracted, pilots would potentially have to intervene using a wheel on the center console as opposed to an electric thumb switch to which they might be accustomed. The perceived rarity of such occurrences ultimately led to a lapse in safety protocols and training.

According to preliminary findings by Indonesian investigators, in the Lion Air disaster in October, pilots encountered almost the exact set of "unusual" circumstances described in the EASA document.

After faulty readings from specific sensors regarding the plane's pitch, the pilots were forced to counter the aircraft's automated anti-stall system (MCAS), which essentially forces the plane into a nosedive to keep the engines running, but they received a warning too late to save the lives of everyone on board.

Meanwhile, officials investigating the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX crash have reportedly reached the same conclusion in their preliminary findings based on data retrieved from the plane's black box recorder.

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