Israeli warplanes hit southern Gaza after sniper fire

Israeli fighter jets carried out an air strike in southern Gaza on Wednesday and killed a Hamas militant after a sniper attack on a patrol seriously wounded a soldier, the army and medics said.

The Israeli military said on a twitter statement that “sniper fire was opened on an #IDF routine patrol near the southern #Gaza Strip.”

“Following the sniper attack on the #Gaza border, #IDF air & ground forces responded immediately to the threat. More details to come,” the statement added.

It was only the second time Israel had struck Gaza since a 50-day war ended with a truce on August 26, after witnesses reported a first strike early on Saturday.

Palestinian medical sources said the incident had taken place east of the southern city of Khan Yunis with Tayseer al-Ismary, 33, killed “as a result of gunfire and shrapnel from a tank shell.”

Hamas sources said he was a member of its military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.

Israeli army spokesman Peter Lerner denounced the attack.

“Hamas sniper attack is an outrageous act of aggression. IDF will continue to protect its forces and the border area,” he wrote on Twitter, noting that the military had instructed Gazan farmers to keep away from the border area “for their own safety.”

Hamas blamed Israel.

“The Israeli occupation is responsible for the tension east of Khan Yunis. They tried to cross the border, provoking a response from Hamas,” spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.

On Saturday, after a rocket struck southern Israeli, the air force hit Gaza for the first time since the truce took hold. Since then, three rockets have struck the Israeli south.

A month ago Israeli troops killed a Palestinian near the border fence in northern Gaza in the first deadly shooting since the truce. Wednesday’s shooting was the second such fatal incident.

The exchanges have raised concerns there could be a new flare up of violence in and around the tiny Palestinian enclave, which is home to 1.8 million people.

Nearly 2,200 Palestinians were killed during the summer war, mostly civilians, and 73 on the Israeli side, most of them soldiers.

[With AFP]