Tel Aviv: The Israeli military, on Wednesday, struck two sites in Gaza in response to the rocket fire on the southern region hours earlier, The Times of Israel reported citing the army.
The air strike in Gaza came as a massive military operation in the West Bank drew to a close, with hundreds of Israeli troops withdrawing from Jenin after two days of intense fighting in the Palestinian refugee camp.
Warplanes struck “an underground weapons workshop used by the chemical unit of the Hamas terror group and a site for processing rocket components,” the Israel Defence Forces said in a statement just before 5:30 am.
The Defence Forces said that the strike was retaliation for the rocket fire on southern Israel earlier in the day.
The Times of Israel citing Palestinian media reported that Israeli planes hit sites in al-Baydar, west of Gaza City, and Beit Lahiyeh, in the northern Strip. Several homes in al-Baydar were damaged.
The Times of Israel is an Israeli multi-language online newspaper.
Several hours earlier, the Iron Dome anti-missile system knocked down five missiles that were fired from Gaza toward the city of Israel’s Sderot and nearby areas.
Shrapnel from an interceptor hit a home in Sderot, causing damage to a ceiling, but no injuries.
There was no claim for the rocket fire. Israel says it holds Hamas, which rules the Strip, responsible for all attacks emanating from the territory regardless of the group launching the attack.
The rocket fire was the first from the coastal enclave since May 14, at the tail end of a five-day flareup in violence between the IDF and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, according to The Times of Israel.
Meanwhile, in Jenin, as the troops began to withdraw an Israeli soldier was killed in a shooting attack, the IDF said.
Palestinian health officials said 13 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded over the course of the operation, which began early Monday.
IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the army was investigating if the soldier was hit by Palestinian gunfire or so-called “friendly fire” by other Israeli forces in the area.
Over 1,000 IDF troops were involved in the campaign, which appeared to be the largest in the West Bank in some 20 years, reported The Times of Israel.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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