After two days that saw the worst exchange of fire between Israel and Hamas since the 2014 war, a fragile truce prevailed Friday in Gaza, with no rocket attacks or airstrikes since an apparent ceasefire went into effect at midnight.
The Israeli Air Force on Thursday evening destroyed a building in the northern Gaza Strip, which reportedly served as a headquarters for the Hamas terrorist group, hours after a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave struck just outside the southern city of Beersheba.
TEL AVIV – Following a barrage of more than 180 rockets, the IDF issued directives to residents of southern Israel on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, instructing them to close down summer camps and stay near bomb shelters.
TEL AVIV – Moments after a Palestinian official from the Gaza Strip declared the end of violence early Thursday afternoon, a fresh barrage of rockets was launched at southern Israeli towns.
Hamas said Wednesday it was treating Egypt’s efforts to broker an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire “with an open mind,” as a delegation from the terror group reportedly left the Gaza Strip through the Rafah Border Crossing for meetings with Egyptian officials in Cairo.
The Israel Air Force retaliated by striking targets in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday evening after 19 people were treated for injuries resulting form rocket attacks from Gaza against southern Israel.
A woman was seriously injured early Thursday morning when a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip hit a home in the Eshkol regional council near the Palestinian enclave.
Israel’s air force bombed 12 Hamas positions across the Gaza Strip Wednesday night, the military said, as dozens of rockets and mortar shells were fired at southern Israeli communities from the Palestinian enclave, including one barrage that slammed into the city of Sderot, injuring several Israelis.
The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday posted footage of Israeli children running for shelter, some of them screaming, as a terror rocket from the Gaza Strip exploded nearby.
The Security Cabinet discussed the proposed ceasefire agreement with Hamas in Gaza for five hours on Sunday. During the meeting, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot briefed the ministers on the situation in the strip.
Hamas said on Sunday it was “disgusted” by the stance its rivals in Fatah have taken toward Egyptian and UN efforts to end the crisis in the Gaza Strip, and charged Fatah with wanting Gaza to remain under siege and shelling.
The ruling Palestinian Fatah faction on Saturday warned Hamas against reaching a cease-fire agreement with Israel in return for humanitarian and economic aid to the Gaza Strip and said such a deal would be a “free gift to Israel.”
IAF aircraft attacked two cells launching incendiary balloons toward Israel from Gaza on Saturday afternoon. So far, no injuries have been reported.
Exiled terrorist members of Gaza’s ruling Hamas decision-making bureau have entered the territory for discussions about an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire deal with Israel.
Israel reimposed a blockade on fuel deliveries to Gaza on Thursday citing a resurgence in kites carrying firebombs over the border and signalling a brief pause in tensions may be ending.
Twenty-nine fires erupted in Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip border Tuesday, as Palestinian arson terrorism continued to wreak havoc near the volatile frontier.
TEL AVIV – Israel’s navy on Sunday intercepted the Al Adwa vessel that was attempting to breach the country’s maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip, organizers of the Freedom Flotilla said.
TEL AVIV – A group of 20 Palestinian children were used as “bait” in an attack from a Palestinian sniper that left one IDF officer moderately wounded, the IDF said late Wednesday night.
The military wing of Gaza’s rulers Hamas on Thursday vowed revenge after Israeli strikes killed three militants in the latest flare-up of violence.
Three Palestinian terrorists in Gaza were killed and another critically wounded on Wednesday evening in a retaliatory IDF attack along the border after a sniper opened fire on Israeli soldiers in a latest round of violence that has gripped the region in recent months.
A rocket shot from Gaza was shot down by the Iron Dome anti-missile system early Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said, as cross-border violence in the volatile region persisted for a second day.
The U.N. human rights chief attacked Israel on Monday, calling acts of self defense by IDF soldiers during Palestinian Hamas terrorist riots along the Gaza border fence “shocking.”
TEL AVIV – The Palestinian Authority on Saturday boasted that it has managed to “incapacitate” President Donald Trump’s as yet unveiled peace plan, which it sees as no more than a “conspiracy” aimed at “liquidating” the Palestinian cause and national rights.
TEL AVIV – Egypt warned Hamas that Israel would launch a war “in two hours” if the terror group responded to IDF strikes in Gaza in retaliation for the killing of an IDF soldier by Palestinian snipers, Israel’s Channel 10 reported Saturday.
The soldier killed Friday by Palestinian sniper fire along the Gaza border was named by the IDF on Saturday night as Staff Sgt. Aviv Levi.
Israel’s 2005 unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip spotlights the dangers of Israel giving up strategic territory to the Palestinians, contended Breitbart Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein.
The ceasefire announced by Hamas at midnight appeared to be holding on Saturday morning, following a surge in violence after Palestinian snipers shot and killed an IDF soldier on the Gaza border on Friday, sparking widespread Israeli strikes on Hamas targets.
Palestinian snipers shot and killed an IDF soldier on the Gaza border on Friday, the army said late Friday night, revealing details on the deadly incident that apparently sparked the night’s widespread Israeli strikes on Hamas targets across Gaza.
The Israel Air Force launched a major wave of strikes across the Gaza Strip on Friday evening as a cabinet minister said Israel was preparing a massive response to Hamas’s failure to heed repeated Israeli warnings to end the violence along the Gaza border.
Israel’s political leadership has reportedly instructed the army to prepare for a military offensive in the Gaza Strip, to be initiated if the launching of incendiary devices from the Hamas-run coastal enclave into Israeli territory continues.
The Times of Israel reports: A balloon from Gaza carrying flaming materials landed in the yard of a preschool in an Israeli community near the border Tuesday as children played outside. A teacher managed to get the children inside and there were no injuries.
The Hamas terrorist group on Monday warned Israel of “dangerous consequences” over its fresh restrictions at a commercial crossing with the Gaza Strip, as the administrators of the Rafah passage linking Egypt to the Palestinian enclave announced its crossing would also be shuttered in both directions on Tuesday.
The Israel Defense Forces on Monday held a large-scale military drill simulating a ground incursion into the Gaza Strip.
There can be little doubt that the massive escalation of projectile attacks from the Gaza Strip the last two days was a transparent attempt by Iran to utilize its Palestinian terrorist proxies in Gaza to impact the current talks between the U.S., Israel and Russia about countering the Iranian presence in Syria.
TEL AVIV – UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov on Sunday appealed to the Palestinians to cease all rocket, mortar and incendiary kite attacks on Israel.
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met with community leaders of southern Israeli towns bordering Gaza, warning that Israel is engaged in a “lengthy battle.”
Israel’s chief military liaison to the Palestinians released an Arabic-language Facebook video Sunday accusing the Hamas terror of spreading “fake news” and challenging reports that Israel had hit a playground in Gaza in its airstrikes Saturday.
The military on Sunday announced that it will be deploying additional Iron Dome missile defense batteries in southern Israel and in the greater Tel Aviv area, following large-scale clashes with the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip over the weekend.
TEL AVIV – The head of the al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades missile unit was killed together with his teenage son in an explosion in Gaza on Sunday while they were in the middle of building a rocket hours after a ceasefire with Israel was implemented, Palestinian media reported.
The air force said Saturday it bombed a multi-story Hamas training complex in the Gaza Strip, completely destroying the building and exposing a tunnel complex underneath.