The Israel Air Force struck vehicles used by a cell involved in the launching of incendiary balloons against Israeli communities near the Gaza border, the IDF Spokesperson's office reported Tuesday.



Israeli planes also struck an observation post from which incendiary balloons had been launched, the statement said.



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`; document.getElementById("linkPremium").innerHTML = cont; (function (v, i){ }); </s> Initial reports claim a Hamas operative was hit in the strike. Unconfirmed reports put the death toll at one with possible injuries to passers-by. But there are conflicting accounts that the operative survived. Photographs of the aftermath show the car was hit in a built-up residential area.

Following the strike, people on social media reported the presence of Israeli Defence Force (IDF) recon aircraft and helicopters in the west of the central region. Red-alert siren alarms also sounded in southern Israel near the Gaza border. The IDF said in a statement: “Following reports regarding sirens in the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council, one launch was identified from the Gaza Strip at Israeli territory.” Palestinian local reportied the entry of IDF aircraft into Gaza airspace.

The explosion comes after another strike by IDF against two other Palestinian cars on Tuesday. Israeli drones destroyed two cars and an observation post that were being used by Palestinians to launch incendiary balloons into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip. The IDF confirmed that its aircraft conducted three strikes in response to repeated arson attacks from the Palestine costal enclave. In a statement, the IDF said: “An IDF aircraft attacked a car in the northern Gaza Strip that was being used by a group of incendiary balloon launchers, as well as an observation post from which they were launching balloons.” </s> A vehicle and two Hamas “observation posts” have been targeted and destroyed by Israeli Defense Forces, while the Iron Dome anti-missile system has intercepted at least three rockets fired at Israel from Gaza.

A “barrage of projectiles” was launched towards southern Israel after IAF aircraft and IDF tanks shelled the militant organization’s targets inside the enclave. The destroyed targets included a vehicle allegedly belonging to a Hamas operative, believed to have been “heavily involved” in explosive balloon attacks. In addition, the IDF struck two Hamas observation posts.

“The Hamas terror organization will bear the consequences for facilitating terror and instability,” the IDF said.

On Tuesday night sirens sounded in Hof Ashkelon, Sha'ar HaNegev and Eshkol Regional Councils when nine rockets were launched from the Gaza strip, the IDF said. One of the projectiles was intercepted by the IDF’s Iron Dome Aerial Defense System. Afterwards, Israel detected three more incoming rockets, two of which were tackled by the air defense system. There were no reports of injuries or damage from the other eight projectiles, which usually strike uninhabited areas.

Earlier in the day, an Israeli jet destroyed another car and an observation post used by Palestinians to launch arson balloons. Over the last couple of weeks, Israel has intensified its effort to stop balloon and kite launches of homemade incendiary devices, which have become a symbol of Arab resistance during the Great March of Return protests along the Gaza-Israeli border since late March. In order to put a halt to these terrorist activities, Israel has limited the amount of helium gas that can be brought into Gaza, restricting it to medical treatment purposes only. The IDF and the IAF, meanwhile, intensified the crackdown on Hamas, which they hold fully responsible for the upsurge in cross-border violence.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! </s> Israel struck a Gaza refugee camp late on Tuesday, targeting a car allegedly belonging to a ‘Hamas operative’, prompting Gaza fighters to fire a dozen rockets into Israel in response.

Israeli aircraft and a tank struck the vehicle in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, where local residents said the car exploded in a ball of flames. A picture posted on social media showed a fireball in an alleyway said to be the car that had been hit.

A statement by the Israeli military claimed the car had belonged to a militant “heavily involved in launching arson and explosive balloons from the Gaza Strip into Israel”. Two Hamas observation posts were also hit, it added.

The incendiary balloons, as well as kites, have become a potent symbol of a wave of Palestinian protests that broke out on March 30 against Israel’s crippling decade-long blockade of Gaza.

No one has been hurt by the fires, but the flames – stoked by Mediterranean winds – have caused crop losses, Israel has claimed.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum in Gaza said Israel’s targeting of the car had “merited a quick response” in the firing of the rockets and showed armed factions were ready to “defend our people and protect their interests”.

Three projectiles were destroyed in flight by Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system, an army spokesman told AFP. </s> The Israeli military said early Wednesday that it conducted airstrikes on the Gaza Strip against two targets belonging to Hamas.

On its Twitter account, the Israeli Defense Forces said it considered Hamas responsible for rockets allegedly fired towards Israeli territory, and as retaliation, it targeted two observation posts in northern Gaza.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, in a statement, said quick retaliation by the resistance movement was necessary as Israel is increasing tensions, targeting Palestinian resisters and peaceful protesters. He did not clearly claim responsibility on behalf of the organization for the alleged rocket attacks on Israel, however.

Israeli warplanes on Tuesday fired missiles toward a group of Palestinians flying incendiary kites in the eastern Gaza Strip.

Palestinian activists have been flying incendiary kites and balloons toward Israeli territory as part of ongoing demonstrations near the Israel-Gaza security fence that began on March 30.

Since the protests began, at least 132 Palestinian demonstrators have been martyred and thousands more injured by Israeli army gunfire.

Protesters demand the “right of return” to their homes in historical Palestine from which they were driven in 1948 to make way for the new state of Israel.

They also demand an end to Israel’s decade-long blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has gutted the coastal enclave’s economy and deprived its roughly two million inhabitants of basic commodities. </s> The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza strip, on Tuesday announced it would gradually halt the launch of incendiary kites and balloons towards Israel, a Gazan Palestinian security source told EFE.

According to the source, Hamas agreed to terminate the launch of Palestinian incendiary floating objects from Gaza over the barbed wire fence separating the Palestinian coastal strip from the Israeli state. </s> Israeli leadership has reportedly instructed the country's military forces to prepare to invade the Gaza Strip if the flaming kite attacks don't cease by this week, according to a Channel 10 news report cited by The Times of Israel.According to the report, Israel has given Hamas until Friday to stop its flaming kite and balloon attacks;Israel sent the message directly to Hamas via Egyptian intelligence services, Channel 10 reported.On Sunday, the Israeli 162nd Armored Division launched a military exercise simulating an attack on the Gaza Strip and a capture of Gaza City. While the Israeli military claims the exercise had been planned in advance and was not related to current events, some saw it as an indirect threat to Hamas.On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the IDF's Gaza Division. During the visit, he said that the country is already in the midst of a "military campaign.""We are in a military campaign in which there have been exchanges of blows. I am prepared to say that the Israel Defense Forces is prepared for any scenario," Netanyahu said.During the last few months, Israel has suffered numerous attacks by kites, balloons and other objects that act as flying incendiary bombs. Thousands of acres of land are reported to have been burned by these attacks. In addition, Israel reports numerous sporadic clashes with Palestinians and mortar and rocket fire at Israeli territory. The Times of Israel has noted that </s> Gaza, July 18 (IANS) Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza strip, has announced it will gradually halt the launch of incendiary kites and balloons towards Israel, the media reported.

The kites, some of which Israel says are also booby-trapped with explosives, have wreaked havoc in the Israeli communities surrounding the Gaza Strip since the phenomenon began in April, sparking fires that have scorched thousands of acres and caused vast damage.

Hamas made the announcement on Tuesday, according to Efe news. Reports said that the group leadership decided to take action against the flaming kites “to prevent dragging Gaza into a war”.

An agreement was reached after talks between Egypt and the UN Special Coordinator (UNSCO) for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, as he mediates with the Palestinians.

According to the UNSCO website, the Bulgarian diplomat appealed to the Palestinians to pull back from “the brink of a confrontation” and to “give peace a chance”.

Multiple parties including Egypt also told Hamas that the kites must be stopped “to prevent giving Israel an excuse to launch a major military offensive”.

Hamas has now deployed its security members along the Israeli-Gazan border to deter the launch of further incendiary objects.

The launch of incendiary flying objects began on March 30 coinciding with the Palestinian Great March of Return on its Gazan border with Israel, under Israeli blockade since 2007.

Palestinian kites and balloons have caused over 700 fires on Israeli soil and damaged Israeli farmlands.

Last weekend tensions in Gaza rose after the launch of 200 rockets, the biggest escalation since 2014, followed by Israeli forces reprisal operations and bombings targeting Hamas military objectives in Gaza, which killed two Palestinian minors.

The Israeli Defence Ministry has tightened its Gaza fishing waters restrictions from six to three nautical miles and maintains the closure of the Kerem Shalom border crossing, the only passage authorized for freight trucks carrying goods from Israel or Egypt to the Gaza Strip. </s> Three Israeli right-wing activists sought to fight fire with fire, retaliating to incendiary kite attacks from Gaza with their own creation — which crashed short of the border and sparked a blaze near a kibbutz, according to reports.

“There are extremists and there are idiots. The worst is a mix of the two,” tweeted Amir Peretz, a Zionist Union member of the Israeli Knesset.

The three men were captured by Israeli soldiers and held for questioning.

One of them, Ran Karmi Buzaglo, claimed that he and his cohorts had merely been trying to make a “humorous video,” the Israeli Haaretz reported.

The video shows Buzaglo igniting a piece of cloth tied to a kite and trying to set it aloft toward Gaza – but it lands inside Israel as someone is heard shouting, “No, no, no!”

Before launching the Molotov cocktail-like weapon, Buzaglo, 54, delivered a warning to Hamas honcho Ismail Haniyeh.

“Listen, man, don’t play with us,” he said in Arabic before continuing in Hebrew: “We are here on the Gaza border. We will teach them how to do it right. We have prepared gifts for them. Soon they will understand that everything they know how to do, we know how to do better.”

Buzaglo recently mocked Palestinians for using the exact same tactic.

“The best minds of IMI [Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer] are developing a laser beam that will intercept kites,” he wrote on Twitter.

“The development will be operational in 2025 and will cost nearly a billion dollars. Meanwhile, the possibility is being considered of putting a bullet in the head of every terrorist who flies a kite bomb.”

A kite carrying flammable material was recently sent from Gaza and sparked a fire near Kibbutz Am close to the border, the Times of Israel reported.

An Israeli soldier shot and wounded the Palestinian as he launched the kite.

In the past several weeks, Gazans have flown kites outfitted with containers of burning fuel – frequently including charcoal and bags of sugar to ensure a long burn – as well as incendiary helium balloons.

Haim Jelin, another Israeli lawmaker, said that “flying an incendiary kite into Israel is equal to launching a Qassam rocket into it.

“Those who do not understand that, don’t understand the implications,” he added. “When the fire is 50 meters away from a community and could easily spread, we cannot ignore under any circumstances the kite terror and allow it to be our routine.”
The Israeli Air Force strikes vehicles it claims were being used to launch incendiary balloons from Gaza over the border into Israel.