Gaza City, May 13 (RHC)-- Israel carried out air strikes for a fifth day while sirens sounded in southern Israel after rockets were launched from the besieged territory. “We witnessed another night full of bombardments and the launching of rockets has intensified in the early morning of Saturday,” said Al Jazeera’s Youmna ElSayed, reporting from the enclave.
Israeli strikes targeted several cities across the strip, including two neighbourhoods of Gaza City that were completely destroyed, she said.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians and wounded three others in the occupied West Bank as air raids hit the Gaza Strip for a fifth straight day. The Palestinian Health Ministry said the Israeli attack on Saturday occurred in the Balata refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
Both men – identified as Adnan Wasim Yousef al-Araj, 19, and Saed Jihad Shaker Mashah, 32 – were killed by gunshots to the head, it said. One of the wounded was a woman in her 50s who was shot multiple times. The Israeli army said it was a “counterterrorism” operation targeting operatives who had been planning attacks on soldiers. “Armed gunmen fired at the forces who responded with riot dispersal means and live fire,” it said. “Two of the terrorists were targeted.”
The Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said the two men killed in the raid were members of its armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The deadly raid on Nablus is the latest in a series of incursions in the occupied West Bank since the start of the year.
