GAZA (Agencies)
Israeli warplanes bombed tunnels beneath the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt on Saturday after armed Palestinian groups fired several mortars at the Jewish state from the coastal territory, witnesses said.
The Israeli military confirmed it had launched several air strikes near the Gaza town of Rafah, along the Egyptian border, but had no further comment.
The attacks followed several Palestinian rocket fires that landed inside Israel. The Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees claimed it had fired three mortar bombs against an Israeli Special Forces patrol.
Israeli police said two shells landed in an uninhabited area, without causing any casualties or damage.
Israel had resumed attacks on Friday on tunnels it says are used to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip, after a nearly two-month hiatus in such strikes. There were no casualties in Friday's air strikes, launched after a rocket struck Israel.
Militant rocket fire has dropped significantly since Egypt began efforts to consolidate the Jan. 18 truce that ended Israel's 22-day offensive against Gaza's Islamic militants.
Israel launched its war on the territory controlled by the Islamist Hamas movement in late December, with the aim of halting cross-border rocket and mortar attacks on the Jewish state by armed militant groups.
A Palestinian human rights organization says 1,417 people were killed, of whom 926 were civilians. The Israeli military says the death toll was 1,166 of whom 295 were civilians. |
