UPDATE 2 – Israel strikes dozens of targets in Gaza Strip

ADDS MORE TARGETS HIT BY ISRAELI JETS

By Mustafa Deveci

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) – Israel launched airstrikes early Saturday against several targets in the Gaza Strip in response to rockets it said were fired towards the country.

Fighter jets and helicopters pounded 80 Hamas targets in Gaza in an operation lasting more than two hours, the Israeli army said in a press release.

The army said on its Twitter account that 30 rockets had been fired from Gaza towards Israel since late Friday but 10 were intercepted by its Iron Dome missile defense system.

Sirens were heard in Israeli settlements near the Gaza-Israel buffer zone because of the rockets fired from Gaza.

Israel targeted several sites, including two weapons manufacturing facilities, five military compounds, a training compound, a tunnel and an anti-aircraft observation post.

There have been no deaths from the airstrikes, according to Palestinian medical sources in Gaza.

Eyewitnesses told Anadolu Agency that Israeli jets struck five Hamas targets in Gaza.

Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said an Israeli airstrike damaged the Indonesia Hospital in northern Gaza.

Other eyewitnesses said several people at the hospital were slightly injured from glass shards and pieces of concrete.

The hospital, inaugurated by the country’s vice president in 2016, was the latest foreign hospital to open in Gaza following the $34 million Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, a project Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – then premier — agreed to sponsor in 2010.

Condemning the Israeli airstrikes, al-Qidra called on international organizations to protect medical institutions and paramedics against Israeli air attacks in Gaza.

The latest developments come after five Palestinians were killed and 85 others injured by Israeli army gunfire during demonstrations Friday along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Hundreds of Palestinians had converged along the zone as part of ongoing demonstrations against Israel’s decades-long occupation.

More than 200 Palestinians have been killed and thousands more injured by Israeli troops deployed near the buffer zone since such rallies began on March 30.

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