Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday threatened to respond with “great force” to a barrage of mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip at neighboring Israeli settlements.
“Israel views the attacks by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad from the Gaza Strip with great severity” Netanyahu said following urgent security consultations held in the morning.
He stressed that the Israeli army will retaliate with great force to these attacks and that Israel will make anyone trying to harm it “pay a heavy price” adding that Hamas should be responsible for preventing such attacks.
Israel’s War Minister Avigdor Lieberman called a “special situational assessment” at the Ministry’s Tel Aviv headquarters with the army’s Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot and other senior figures from Israel’s security services.
Observers expect that tension will run high in the Gaza Strip as Israel may strike targets in Gaza without generating into an open war similar to the one waged on the besieged area in the summer of 2014.
The Israeli occupation army in a statement said that a barrage of at least 25 mortar shells was fired on Tuesday morning from the Gaza Strip at Israeli settlements adding that most of the shells were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system.
In the past two days 4 Palestinian resistance fighters were killed in Israeli artillery attacks on resistance posts in northern and southern Gaza.
