Four Palestinians were injured by Israeli airstrikes in the besieged Gaza Strip on Tuesday night.
An Israeli army spokesperson said on Wednesday that the Israeli air force had targeted “two Hamas posts” in the northern Gaza Strip, after an unidentified projectile — which they said was fired from Gaza — landed in an open area in southern Israel on Tuesday evening, causing no injuries, according to Ma’an News.
Ayman al-Sahbani, the head of the Emergency and Ambulance department at the al-Shifa Medical Center in Gaza City, said that four Palestinians suffered from light to critical injuries during the airstrikes.
One of the injured was identified as a 26-year-old man who was hit by shrapnel in the head and was reported to be in moderate condition.
A Ma’an reporter at the scene of one of the airstrikes said that the windows of dozens of houses had been shattered by the blast.
An Israeli army spokesperson had initially denied to Ma’an on Tuesday that Israel had shelled Gaza.
Israeli officials have long accused Hamas, Gaza’s de facto leading party, of “preparing” for another war with Israel and have threatened retaliatory measures against the Gaza Strip as a whole, while Israeli authorities hold Hamas responsible for all attacks against Israeli targets coming from the Gaza Strip.
However, Hamas has not claimed responsibility for any rocket attacks since a ceasefire was declared after Israel’s devastating war in Gaza in 2014, and the movement has attempted to clamp down on armed activity by smaller political groups that do launch rockets from the territory.
Shells have been fired from the blockaded coastal territory into Israel a number of times since the beginning of the year, most recently in July, without causing any casualties.
Israeli forces have launched a number of airstrikes in retaliation, injuring at least seven Palestinians and damaging electricity infrastructure.
