Hamas positions have been targeted after a Palestinian rocket attack hit an Israeli border town.
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“The attacks, which caused injuries to innocent Palestinian civilians, are not acceptable regardless of their grounds”, the ministry said in a statement. There was property damage however. Hamas military leaders said they would renew hostilities against Israel and that Israeli prisoners held by Hamas will receive the same treatment as Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
“The normalisation of our relations with Turkey does not mean that we will remain silent in the face of its baseless condemnations”, he said on Monday, according to the Associated Press news agency.
Israel holds Hamas, which controls Gaza, responsible for all attacks emanating from the territory.
“We will continue to protect innocent Israeli citizens from the firing of rockets into our territory according to worldwide law and in accordance with our responsibility and conscience”, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s response read.
It was followed by a massive government crackdown on alleged coup sympathisers which has drawn European Union criticism that it may violate human rights.
Multiple air strikes later in the evening hit at least 30 different sites in the Gaza Strip belonging to Hamas, the smaller Islamic Jihad and other militant groups and two people were lightly hurt, Gaza health officials said.
Israel and Turkey cut ties in 2010 after the Mavi Marmara incident, in which the Israeli navy raided a vessel carrying activists poised to break the Israeli-imposed siege on the Gaza enclave. Extremist Salafist gunmen took responsibility for the rocket attack, but Israel has repeatedly said that Hamas is the sovereign power in the Gaza Strip and is therefore responsible for all rocket fire coming from Gaza.
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A 10th died after years in a coma. Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the USA and the European Union, seized control of Gaza in 2007 after days of armed battles against the security forces of the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah faction. Israel’s Knesset approved the deal in late June.
