President Joe Biden barely left, the tension goes up a notch between Israel and Gaza. A last stand, they say in Israel. After firing rockets launched from Gaza, the Israeli army carried out early this Saturday, July 16, strikes on positions of the Palestinian movement Hamas.
With our correspondent in Jerusalem, Michael Paul
This happened just hours after the departure of the American president. In all, four rockets were fired in two bursts from the Gaza Strip. One of them, which targeted the coastal city of Ashkelon, sent its inhabitants to the shelters in the middle of the night. It was intercepted by a missile from the system iron dome. The other rockets landed in uninhabited areas without causing damage.
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This attack has not been claimed at this stage by any organization in Gaza. But the Israeli air force claims to have retaliated by targeting an underground Hamas facility, a rocket materials factory located in the center of the Palestinian enclave. Palestinian sources say for their part that there were several successive strikes against targets in Gaza. This is the first such incident since new Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid took office on July 1.