Israel hits back with strikes after mortar attack from Gaza

Palestinian militants launched on Tuesday their heaviest barrages against Israel since the 2014 Gaza war and Israeli aircraft struck back in a surge of fighting after weeks of border violence. At least three Israelis were wounded by shrapnel, health officials said, after several dozen mortar bombs and rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip, triggering warning sirens in southern Israel throughout the day.

Israel has long said it would not tolerate such attacks, and its warplanes hit more than 30 targets belonging to armed groups, including a cross-border tunnel under construction, the military said. It accused Hamas and the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad group of launching the salvoes. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the barrages.

Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said the most extensive strikes from Gaza since the seven-week war in 2014 also drew “the largest IDF retaliatory attack” since then. The Israeli military said more than 25 projectiles were fired on Tuesday. Several were shot down by its Iron Dome rocket interceptor while others landed in empty lots and farmland.

Violence has soared along the Gaza frontier in recent weeks during which 116 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire at mass demonstrations calling for Palestinians’ right to return to ancestral lands now in Israel.

Also, organisers of the Palestinian border protests launched a boat from Gaza on Tuesday in a challenge to Israel’s maritime blockade of the enclave.

“I want to make a future for myself, I want to live,” said Ehab Abu Armana, 28, before he and 14 other protesters boarded the boat.