Israel strikes Gaza Strip after rocket fired: Witnesses, Hamas

Israel carried out strikes early Tuesday in the Gaza Strip after a rocket was fired from the Palestinian enclave into Israel, witnesses and its ruling movement said.

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Israeli aircraft hit the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses said, while the armed wing of Hamas announced that it fired on Israeli planes.

“Congratulations to the men of the resistance who confronted the fighter jets with our anti-aircraft defense,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said in a statement, claiming the Israeli raid hit “empty sites”.

Witnesses and security sources in the Gaza Strip reported no injuries from the raid, which come shortly after Israel’s “Iron Dome” air defense system intercepted a rocket fire from Gaza into Israeli territory.

“In response to this attack, IDF fighter jets struck a Hamas terrorist organization weapons manufacturing site in the Gaza Strip,” the Israeli army said.

The rocket attack and retaliatory air raid come after a weekend of Israeli-Palestinian violence in and around Jerusalem’s flashpoint al-Aqsa Mosque compound that wounded more than 170 people, mostly Palestinian demonstrators.

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