Airstrikes on Gaza come in a week that has seen 10 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli warplanes have attacked sites in the Gaza Strip after a missile landed in southern Israel and tensions reached boiling point in the occupied West Bank, where 10 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since last week.
The Israeli military said the airstrikes in the early hours of Sunday morning targeted an arms factory and an underground tunnel owned by Hamas, according to the Associated Press news agency.
“The overnight strike continues progress to hamper troop build-up,” the Israeli army said in reference to Hamas, the AP reported.
No group has claimed responsibility for the rocket, reportedly the first fired in a month, which the Israeli military said landed in an open area near the Gaza-Israel fence on Saturday night, causing no casualties or damage to property cause.
The airstrike on Gaza follows outrage over the killing of a young Palestinian man, Ammar Mufleh, 23, by an Israeli soldier in broad daylight on Friday, which was caught on video. The harrowing footage has sparked widespread anger among Palestinians and is urging social media to escalate resistance to the Israeli occupation.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the shooting of Mufleh as tantamount to execution, and Palestinian activists and social media users have adopted the hashtag “Huwara Execution” in Arabic, calling for a response to the Israeli forces’ crimes.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell released a statement saying he was “extremely concerned about the increasing levels of violence in the occupied West Bank”.
“In the last few days alone, 10 Palestinians have been killed by the ISF (Israeli Security Forces). Yesterday’s tragic killing of a Palestinian, Ammar Mifleh, by a member of the ISF (Israeli Security Forces) was the most recent example,” Borrell said.
“Such unacceptable facts must be investigated and there must be full accountability. Under international law, lethal force is only justified in situations where there is a serious and imminent threat to life,” he said.
The escalating violence has made 2022 the deadliest year since the end of the second intifada in 2005, with at least 207 Palestinians killed in the occupied territories of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem so far this year.