12 April 2018•Update: 12 April 2018
By Gulsen Topcu and Mohamed Majed
GAZA CITY, Palestine
Israeli warplanes bombed a Hamas military position in the Gaza Strip early Thursday, leaving one Palestinian dead and another injured, according to local sources.
The targeted site in the northern Gaza Strip was affiliated with the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of resistance movement Hamas.
“Mohamed Hajila, 31, was martyred, while a second person was injured,” Ayman al-Sahbani, emergency room director at Gaza City’s government-run Dar al-Shifa Medical Complex, told Anadolu Agency without identifying the injured individual.
In a statement, the Israeli army said the attack had targeted a Hamas “military compound” in the northern Gaza Strip in response to alleged attempts by resistance fighters to plant bombs along the border -- acts for which it claimed to hold Hamas responsible.
Hamas, meanwhile, which has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007, has confirmed that Hajila was a member of its armed wing.
“His [Hajila’s] pure blood will only fuel the resistance and our drive towards liberation,” the group said in a statement.
On Wednesday, Hamas said continued Israeli shelling of its sites in Gaza reflected the state of “confusion and hysteria” into which Israel had been thrown by mass Palestinian rallies now underway along the strip’s 45-kilometer eastern border.
Since the rallies began on Mar. 30, at least 31 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli cross-border gunfire, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Demonstrators demand that Palestinian refugees be granted the “right of return” to their towns and villages in historical Palestine from which they were driven in 1948.
The rallies are part of a six-week border sit-in that will culminate on May 15. That day will mark the 70th anniversary of Israel's establishment -- an event Palestinians refer to as the "Nakba" or "Catastrophe".
