An Israeli aircraft on Monday struck an observation post in the Northern Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said, an apparent reaction to people sending incendiary balloons across the border toward Israel.
According to the Israeli military, the post belonged to the radical Islamist Hamas movement, which rules the coastal enclave.
Hamas security sources reported no injuries.
The attack came shortly after masked Palestinians launched incendiary balloons across the Strip into Israel, setting alight agricultural fields.
However, a previously unknown group calling itself Wa’ed al-Tahrir, the Promise of Liberation, claimed responsibility for the launch. Their balloons had explosives attached to them.
The group said in a leaflet that the balloons were partially intended as revenge for alleged Israeli measures against innocent women in the West Bank, Palestinian prisoners and the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
Israel captured Gaza from Egypt in the 1967 Six-Day War, but unilaterally pulled out its army and evacuated its settlements in the Strip in 2005.
Israel, however, continued to control Gaza’s borders, along with Egypt. Israel frequently closes crossings in response to rocket fire and violence along the border.
The last major conflict between Israel and Hamas was in 2014. Since then, violence had flared up from time to time, in spite an informal Egyptian-brokered Hamas-Israel truce.
dpa/NAN
