Israeli fighter jets bomb Gaza in first such operation since August
Israeli fighter jets early on Friday targeted what the Israeli army claimed was a rocket manufacturing site in the Gaza Strip, in the first such bombing since Israel's offensive against the besieged enclave in August.
The Israeli army said the attack on the facility, which they said belonged to Hamas, was in response to rockets fired towards Israel.
One of the rockets was intercepted and three others "exploded inside the Gaza Strip", the Israeli army said earlier on Thursday.
The rocket fire from Gaza came after Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man on Thursday who was said to be a member of both the Jenin Battalion armed group and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement.
The Israeli army said air raid sirens warning of potential incoming rocket fires had blared in three Israeli towns near the fence separating the Palestinian enclave from Israel late on Thursday.
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Israel has maintained a crippling blockade of the Gaza Strip since 2007, which critics say amounts to collective punishment of the impoverished enclave's two million residents.
Israel prevents the importing of materials and equipment into Gaza and has imposed strict restrictions on exports, leading to a state of "paralysis" in several sectors of Gaza's economy.
Boy shot dead
Earlier on Thursday, Israeli forces shot dead four Palestinians, including a 14-year-old boy, in separate incidents in annexed East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.
Farouk Jameel Salamah, 28, and Mohammad Samer Khallouf, 14, were killed by troops during an army raid in the city of Jenin, the Palestinian health ministry said.
Salamah was a member of the Jenin Battalion armed group and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, according to Palestinian reports.
The Israeli army confirmed on Twitter that it had targeted Salamah during an operation in the city, accusing him of playing a part in the killing of Israeli army commando Noam Raz in May.
So far in 2022, 135 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank in 2022, according to data collected by MEE based on UN figures, the Palestinian health ministry and MEE's reporting. More than 29 of them were children.
In the same period, at least 22 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians, five of them shot dead in the West Bank.
It has been the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank on a monthly average since 2005, according to the United Nations.
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