The Israeli Air Force carried out their first airstrikes over the Gaza Strip this month, claiming they were targeting a Hamas post.

According to an Israeli military statement, their air force was launching a retaliatory attack in response to a rocket allegedly fired by Hamas on Wednesday.

Israeli warplanes attack Gaza after rocket 'intercepted' from territory https://t.co/Lh2sDq7aBO pic.twitter.com/Gw8M9arIHD

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) June 13, 2019

In a statement, the Israeli military said fighter planes attacked “underground infrastructure” in a compound belonging to Hamas. There were no reports of injuries.

In two days of heavy fighting in early May, Israeli strikes killed 21 Palestinians, over half of them civilians, according to Gaza health authorities.

It's as if it has become normal that the illegal state attack Gaza that most of the world no longer care. https://t.co/rAQ0Rv1kCG

— Sari Ali (@sarinafa) June 13, 2019

A truce mediated by Egypt, Qatar, and the United Nations ended that round of violence.

Some two million Palestinians live in Gaza, whose economy has suffered years of Israeli and Egyptian blockades as well as recent foreign aid cuts and sanctions by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas’s rival in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israeli rights group @btselem and @hrw has found that one of the Isreali airstrikes we covered in the below story is likely unlawful. Six civilians were killed including a 3-month old baby & an 11-year-old boy in the Sheikh Zayed strike, Beit Lahiya May 5 https://t.co/sP4kelOTbp

— Bel Trew (@Beltrew) June 13, 2019

Israel says its blockade is necessary to stop arms reaching Hamas, with which it has fought three wars since the group seized control of Gaza in 2007, two years after Israel withdrew its settlers and troops from the small coastal enclave.

(TeleSur, PC, Social Media)