2 killed in Israeli drone strike in Gaza

International Desk: Two Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants riding on a motorcycle in Gaza were killed in an explosion on Tuesday, health officials said.

Israel’s military denied accounts by local residents that they were killed in an air strike.

Violence along the Israel-Gaza border has flared since U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition last week of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the Israeli military’s demolition on Sunday of a cross-border tunnel it said was dug by Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the small coastal enclave.

On Monday, Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted a rocket fired by militants in Gaza. Shortly afterward, Israel responded with tank fire and air strikes targeting positions of Hamas.

After the explosion on Tuesday that killed the two militants, an Israeli military statement said: “Contrary to Palestinian reports ... the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) did not attack in the northern Gaza Strip.”

In recent years Israel has largely refrained from carrying out so-called “targeted killings” of militants in the enclave in an apparent attempt to avoid heightening tensions along the Gaza border. Some of those targeted were attacked from the air while traveling in cars or on motorcycles.


Source: Reuters

risingbd/Dhaka/Dec 12, 2017/AI