Updated 06/27/2020 at 02:30
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Israelo-Palestinian conflict
As of Friday evening, two rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel without injuring anyone. The Israeli air force retaliated overnight.
A fireball visible in the Khan Younès sector, after Israeli strikes on the night of Friday to Saturday.
–AFP
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The Israeli air force struck Hamas positions in the Gaza Strip overnight from Friday to Saturday. These are reprisals for rocket fire into Israel from the Palestinian enclave. These exchanges of fire take place against a backdrop of growing tension as a key deadline approaches for Israel’s planned annexation of sections of the occupied West Bank.
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As of Friday evening, two rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel without injuring anyone. Rescue services said the sirens had sounded in the Sderot area, an Israeli town a few kilometers from the Palestinian enclave. In the aftermath, Israeli combat jets hit ammunition and rocket “factories” in the southern Gaza Strip, the military said on Saturday.
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Security sources in Gaza confirmed to AFP strikes in the area of Khan Younes, at the southern tip of this Palestinian territory of two million inhabitants. The last rocket fire from Gaza against the Hebrew State from the Palestinian enclave dates back to early May.
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“Declaration of war”
However, on Thursday, the armed wing of Hamas warned Israel against its plan to annex sections of the occupied West Bank, which it would amount to a “declaration of war” according to it. “The resistance considers an annexation of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley as a declaration of war against our people and we will make the enemy bite their fingers (…)”, said the spokesman for Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Abou Obaida.
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These statements come amid fears of an approaching decision expected from the Israeli government on the implementation of the United States plan for the Middle East. This provides for the annexation by Israel of the Jordan Valley and settlements in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by the Israeli army, as well as the creation of a Palestinian state on a reduced territory.
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Palestinian leaders, from secular Fatah in power in the West Bank to Hamas in Gaza, castigated this plan, which has also been denounced by the UN, Europeans and the Arab League.
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(ATS / NXP)
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