Palestinians fight back as Israel launches air raids

Explosions light-up the night sky above buildings in Gaza City as Israeli forces shell the Palestinian enclave, yesterday.

Palestinian fighters again launched incendiary balloons from Gaza yesterday, hours after Israeli strikes in response to earlier cross-border fire attacks, the first flare-up since hundreds were killed in last month’s conflict.The air strikes on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza were the first under Israel’s new government headed by Naftali Bennett, whose ideologically disparate coalition on Sunday ousted long-serving prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.A fire department spokesman said teams were tackling “four fires started by balloons launched yesterday afternoon from the Gaza Strip”, marking a second consecutive day of such fires.Tensions also rose again in the occupied West Bank, where the Israeli army said they shot a Palestinian woman, alleging she had attempted to ram soldiers with a car and then stab them.The renewed violence came a day after Jewish ultranationalist demonstrators poured into Jerusalem’s flashpoint Old City, where scores of police clashed with Palestinians to clear a route for the procession.Tensions in east Jerusalem, culminating in Israeli police repeatedly clashing with Palestinian worshippers in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, were the trigger for last month’s 11-day conflict between Hamas and Israel.The Israeli military said that in response to “arson balloons” sent into Israel on Tuesday, its “fighter jets struck military compounds belonging to Hamas” early yesterday.There was no indication of any casualties.Israel’s military added that it was “prepared for any scenario, including a resumption of hostilities,” in the event of further attacks from Gaza.The violence is the first between Israel and Hamas since a ceasefire took effect on May 21, ending 11 days of heavy fighting that killed 260 Palestinians including some fighters, according to Gaza authorities.In Israel, 13 people were killed in last month’s conflict, including a soldier, by rockets and missiles fired from Gaza, the police and army said.Bennett yesterday met army chief Aviv Kochavi, and the two discussed “the lessons to be learnt from the operation in the Gaza Strip” in May, according to a statement by the premier’s office.In the West Bank yesterday, a Palestinian woman was shot after attempting to drive into Israeli soldiers in a car and attack them with a knife near Hizma, south of Ramallah, the military said.The Palestinian health ministry said the woman died of her wounds.Official Palestinian news website Wafa identified the woman as Mai Afana, 29, from the town of Abu Dis, just outside Jerusalem.But her uncle Hani Afana said the family rejected the claim that the young mother had tried to kill Israeli soldiers.She “took this road by mistake,” and “did not attempt to carry out an attack,” he said.The previous day saw more than a thousand Israelis bearing their national flag take to the streets of east Jerusalem in a delayed and controversial march by nationalist and far-right activists.Both the United Nations and the United States had called for restraint before the march, which Bennett’s new government authorised.