The Israeli military conducted air raids on the Gaza Strip throughout the night, targeting roads used by militants to reach the launch sites for cross-border rocket attacks, the army and witnesses said yesterday.
Residents in Gaza City said they had been unable to sleep as jets consistently broke the sound barrier during sorties that began shortly after midnight and were wrapped up around daybreak.
Palestinian security sources said that the air strike had targeted roads around the towns of Beit Hanun and Beit Lahiya in the north of the territory and close to the border into southern Israel. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The army, which has already declared a part of northern Gaza as a security zone, said that the roads were being used by militants to reach areas on the edge of the border into southern Israel.
10 roads attacked
"Our aircraft attacked 10 roads in the north of the Gaza Strip giving access to sectors from where the terrorist organizations can fire Qassam rockets at our territory," she said in reference to rockets named after the armed wing of the radical Islamist movement Hamas.
The raids followed an overnight Qassam attack on the town of Sderot in the south of Israel which caused neither casualties nor damage.
Earlier, Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets over the north of the Gaza Strip warning inhabitants not to expose themselves by moving around, a military source said.
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz ordered the application from Monday night of a decision to create a zone where movement of Palestinians is limited in the north of the Strip, a spokesman for his ministry said.
An army statement said that the leaflets had been dropped "in the areas from which terror activity is being carried out against Israel."
Ongoing attacks
The Israeli Defense Force notified the Palestinian population that it will not tolerate the ongoing attacks carried out by terror organizations against the Israeli population, and has stressed that civilians located in areas from which these organizations operate are endangering themselves.
Israel pulled all its troops out of the Gaza Strip in September, a month after the evacuation of all Jewish settlers from the territory.
Mofaz has played down the idea of staging a ground operation in Gaza, insisting that the army has the means to put an end to the attacks without re-entering the territory.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS