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Israeli tanks, aircraft target Hamas positions in Gaza Strip

Friday, 19 April 2019 4:00 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 19 April 2019 6:02 PM ]

This picture, taken on March 30, 2019, shows Israeli battle tanks stationed near the Gaza Strip. (By AFP)

Israel has launched artillery and aerial attacks on positions belonging to the Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas in the besieged Gaza Strip.

According to Palestinian security sources speaking to AFP, the Israeli attacks struck the military observation posts of the resistance group at three locations along the fence separating Gaza from the occupied territories on Friday.

The sources said no casualties had been reported.

Israel’s military claimed that the attacks had been conducted after shots were fired from the besieged enclave at Israeli troops on the other side of the fence. “No injuries to soldiers were reported,” the Israeli army said in a statement.

Palestinian protesters carry their national flag during a demonstration along the fence between the Gaza Strip and the occupied territories, east of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on April 12, 2019. (Photo by AFP)

Meanwhile, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continued to protest along the fence in Gaza on Friday.

Ashraf al-Qedra, the spokesman for the Gazan Health Ministry, said that Israeli forces injured 42 Palestinians, including five paramedics and four journalists, in eastern Gaza during the latest protests.

إصابات بالرصاص الحيّ وقنابل الغاز خلال المواجهات مع قوات الاحتلال شرق مدينة #غزة. pic.twitter.com/RrS6LCz5aK
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) April 19, 2019

The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007. Palestinians in Gaza have held weekly rallies to demand the right to return for those driven out of their homeland and an end to the Israeli siege on the enclave.

More than 270 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces ever since anti-occupation protest rallies began in the Gaza Strip on March 30, 2018. Over 16,000 Palestinians have also sustained injuries.

The blockade has caused a decline in living standards as well as unprecedented unemployment and poverty.

Israel has launched several wars on the Palestinian coastal sliver, the last of which began in early July 2014. The military aggression, which ended on August 26, 2014, killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians. Over 11,100 others were also wounded in the war.

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