The Israeli army said on Friday that it had launched an airstrike on Gaza in response to violence during a border rally in which health authorities said several Palestinians were injured.
• Also read: Five Palestinians killed by explosive device in Gaza
This attack is the first since early July, when Israel fired third-party rockets from Gaza in response to the deadliest Israeli operation in the occupied West Bank in years.
According to the army, the target of this attack was “a military post of the terrorist organization Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip.”
A military spokesman said the attack targeted an area where Palestinians had gathered on Friday, near the permanently closed Karni border crossing.
A security source in the Palestinian territory told AFP on condition of anonymity that Israel had “bombed a resistance observation post east of Gaza City.”
No injuries were reported immediately after the strike.
Earlier in the day, an AFP journalist at the protest saw Palestinians throwing stones and explosives at Israeli forces across the border, and two protesters were shot and injured.
Clouds of black smoke filled the area as Palestinians set fire to tires.
According to the Gaza Strip Health Ministry, 12 Palestinians were injured during various rallies along the border.
The Israeli army said “several explosive devices and grenades” were thrown at soldiers but no one was injured.
The airstrike came after an explosion on Wednesday that killed at least five Palestinians during a rally at the border.
A witness told AFP that the device carried by a protester could have been a grenade.
The Gaza Strip, a poor and crowded Palestinian territory, has been under an Israeli blockade since the Islamist movement Hamas came to power in 2007.
In recent years there have been numerous wars involving clashes between Gaza activists and Israeli forces.
In May, Israeli and Palestinian armed groups clashed, with airstrikes on the Gaza Strip and rocket attacks on Israeli soil. This violence left 34 Palestinians and one Israeli woman dead.