GAZA CITY: Israeli warplanes bombed Hamas and Islamic Jihad military sites across the Gaza Strip early on Wednesday in response to missile attacks on Israeli towns.
The Israeli attacks targeted sites in the south, center and north of the Gaza Strip. No casualties were recorded but the strikes caused material damage in and around the targeted areas.
Earlier, Palestinian factions fired several rockets targeting the town of Sderot, adjacent to the northern Gaza Strip, most of which were intercepted by the Israeli Iron Dome defense system.
Following the Israeli attacks, the factions also fired a second round of rockets.
The escalation came after Israeli police stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and assaulted worshipers inside.
Videos on social media showed Israeli police assaulting Palestinians inside the mosque and beating them with batons. As the news reached Gaza, mosques in the strip began inviting Palestinians to march in solidarity and pray for fellow Muslims in Al-Aqsa.
The Israeli military said fighter jets attacked a weapons production site and another site for the production and storage of weapons for Hamas in the central Gaza Strip. It warned that in response to the rocket fire from Gaza, Hamas bears responsibility for return strikes and will pay the price for any violation.
Gaza Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem, said: “The bombing of the Gaza Strip this morning is a failed attempt to prevent Gaza from continuing its support by all means for our people in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
“Our people and their valiant resistance in the Gaza Strip and all of Palestine will remain like a sword and shield for Jerusalem, and the bombing will not intimidate us, but will increase our adherence to exercising our right to support the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
Hamas official Saleh Arouri said in a statement: “The Israeli occupation forces’ attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque and peaceful Palestinian worshipers is a serious crime to which the Palestinian people and resistance will respond.
“We call on the Palestinian people across Palestine who have been subjected to the brutality of the Israeli occupation to respond to the despicable attack against them.”
Islamic Jihad said in a statement that the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip was a “warning message.”
Tariq Selmi, spokesman for the group in Gaza, said: “The position on the occupation’s aggression against Al-Aqsa was expressed by the resistance with missiles, which were only a preliminary warning message to the occupation against its aggression at Al-Aqsa.
“That this message came at the same time as shooting operations in the West Bank indicates that the battle to defend Al-Aqsa will include all areas of the West Bank.”
During the evening, Palestinian youths along the borders set tires on fire, causing loud explosions in an attempt to confuse Israeli forces.
Local Palestinian websites, quoting private sources, said contact was being made by Egypt and the UN with Palestinian factions to restore calm in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Israeli websites said that talks took place between “Egypt, Jordan, the UN peace process envoy and the US administration to try to restore calm.”
