Israel strikes Gaza in response to incendiary balloons

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Israel strikes Gaza in response to incendiary balloons
Israel completed air strikes on the Gaza Strip early Wednesday after militants in the Palestinian territory sent incendiary balloons into the south of the united states, in the first major conflict between the two sides since a flare-up in May in which hundreds were killed.

The strikes were the first beneath the new coalition government headed by Naftali Bennett, who took over on Sunday after ousting former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Plus they come as greater than a thousand ultranationalist demonstrators bearing Israeli flags poured into Jerusalem’s flashpoint Old City on Tuesday, with scores of police deployed and international monitors urging calm.

According to Palestinian sources, Israel’s air force targeted at least one site east of Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip, which houses some two million people.

An AFP photojournalist in Khan Yunis saw the explosions.

The Israeli Defence Force said that in response to the “arson balloons”, its “fighter jets struck military compounds owned by the Hamas terror organisation”.

It added that “facilities and meeting sites for terror operatives” in Khan Yunis were targeted. There is no indication of casualties up to now.

Local firefighters said the incendiary balloons caused around 20 fires in southern Israel.

The violence marks the first major flare-up between Israel and Palestinian militants since a ceasefire came into place in May, ending 11 days of heavy fighting that killed 260 Palestinians, according to Gaza authorities, and 13 people in Israel, the authorities and army there said.

- Restraint -

In annexed east Jerusalem, multiple thousand persons took to the streets in a delayed and controversial march by nationalist and far-right activists.

The US and UN had needed restraint prior to the march, which Bennett’s new administration had authorised.

With tensions high, Israeli police were deployed in heavy numbers, blocking roads and firing stun grenades and foam-tipped bullets to remove Palestinians from the key route.

Medics said 33 Palestinians were wounded and police said two officers were injured and 17 persons arrested.

The demonstration triggered protests in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and prompted rebukes and warnings from Israel’s allies.

The so-called March of the Flags celebrates the anniversary of the city’s “reunification” after Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967 and annexed it, a move not recognised by the majority of the international community.

Tuesday’s demonstration was at first scheduled for early May but cancelled twice amid police opposition and threats from Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.

Throngs of mostly young religious men sang, danced and waved flags at the Damascus Gate access to the Old City that was cleared of its usual Palestinian crowds.

Some chanted “Death to Arabs” before others quieted them.

- ‘Provocation’ -

The march comes just two days after Netanyahu was ousted after 12 straight years in power, toppled by an ideologically divided coalition including, for the very first time in Israel’s history, an Arab party.

Bennett is himself a Jewish nationalist but Netanyahu’s allies accused the brand new premier of treachery for allying with Arabs and the left.

Some demonstrators on Tuesday carried signs reading “Bennett the liar”.

Yair Lapid, the architect of the brand new government, tweeted he believed the march needed to be allowed but that “it’s inconceivable the best way to hold an Israeli flag and shout, ‘Death to Arabs’ concurrently.”

Mansour Abbas, whose four-seat Raam Islamic party was essential to the coalition, called Tuesday’s march a “provocation” which should have been cancelled.
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