GAZA City, Gaza Strip — Israel targeted militant sites in Gaza, after Palestinians shot at its forces near the border, the military said Friday, with airstrikes and tank fire that Palestinian officials said killed at least three people.
Israel’s military said Palestinians in Gaza had fired shots at soldiers near the border. It says it responded with airstrikes and tank fire at militant targets in Gaza.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least three people were killed.
In a statement Friday, Hamas confirmed all three killed were members of its group.
Earlier Friday, Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman visited Sderot, an Israeli town near Gaza that has been hard hit by Palestinian rockets over the years. Lieberman said “the heads of Hamas are forcibly leading us to a no choice situation in which we will need to embark on wide and painful military operation.”
On Saturday, Israel pounded Hamas targets in its largest bombardment campaign since the 2014 war, while Gaza militants fired dozens of rockets toward Israel.
Israel says it has no interest is engaging in another war with Hamas, but says it will no longer tolerate the Gaza militants’ campaign of daily flying incendiary kites and balloons across the border that has torched Israeli crops, burned nature reserves and killed wildlife.
Hamas on Friday vowed that it will continue to protest by launching incendiary devices at Israel.
Khalil al-Hayya, a top Hamas leader, said “the protests will remain, flaming and existing, and its tools will multiply and diversify, including kites, until our goals are achieved.”
The near-weekly protests led by Gaza’s Hamas along the border since March 30 against Israel are meant in part to draw attention to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed after the militant group assumed control of Gaza in 2007.
The demonstrations have been fueled in large part by pervasive despair caused by the blockade which has caused widespread economic hardship.
Over 135, mostly unarmed, Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since protests began.
Israel says it is defending its sovereign border and accuses Hamas, a group sworn to its destruction, of using the protests as cover for attempts to breach the border fence and attack civilians and soldiers.
