Israel begins airstrikes in Gaza after rocket hits house near Tel Aviv
Israel’s military launched strikes on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip on Monday, March 25, the army and witnesses said, hours after a rocket from the Palestinian enclave hit a house and wounded seven Israelis.
“We have just started striking Hamas targets throughout the Gaza Strip,” the Israel Defense Forces tweeted.
We have just started striking Hamas targets throughout the Gaza Strip.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) March 25, 2019
Witnesses and a security source in Gaza told AFP there had been at least two strikes on a site belonging to Hamas’s military wing in the west of the Gaza Strip.
Details were not yet clear on the strikes.
The strikes began around the same time Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington.
Netanyahu had earlier vowed a strong response to the rocket that hit a house north of Tel Aviv in a rare long-distance strike.
The house was destroyed and seven Israelis were lightly wounded from burns and shrapnel.
The flare-up comes at a highly sensitive time for Israel, which holds elections on April 9.
Israel blamed Hamas for the rocket, but a Hamas source denied the Islamist movement, which rules the Palestinian enclave, was behind it.
Netanyahu planned to cut short his Washington visit due to the security situation and return home after meeting Trump.
With reporting from AFP
