Following violent protests in which Israeli fire injured three Palestinians, the Israeli army launched a drone strike on the Gaza Strip on Saturday, according to sources on both sides.
The early-evening strike is one of several that have taken place amid almost daily demonstrations by Palestinians at the border after Israel shut down the Erez crossing from Gaza.
The army reported that a drone “hit a military post belonging to the terrorist organization Hamas, adjacent to the area where a violent riot was taking place.”
Without mentioning any injuries, it said, “shots were fired toward” Israeli soldiers close to the border during the strike.
A Palestinian security source told AFP that an “Israeli aircraft had targeted a Hamas surveillance site east of Gaza City”, without mentioning any casualties.
Earlier in the day, Palestinian demonstrators faced off against Israeli soldiers stationed along the border fence, an AFP journalist reported.
Demonstrators set fire to tyres and threw stones at Israeli soldiers.
Three Palestinians were wounded by Israeli fire, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Israel has imposed an air, land and sea blockade on the impoverished Palestinian enclave ever since the Islamist group Hamas seized control in 2007.
Thousands of Palestinian workers from Gaza have been prevented from entering Israel by the closure of the Erez crossing, which an Israeli NGO, Gisha, condemned as “collective punishment”.
Israel has issued work permits to some 18,500 Gazans, COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body responsible for Palestinian civil affairs, said on Tuesday.
According to statistics from the health ministry in Gaza, since September 13, violence at the border has resulted in six Palestinian deaths and close to 100 injuries.
Between Israeli forces and militants in the Gaza Strip, armed combat occasionally breaks out.
34 Palestinians and one Israeli were killed in an air attack by Israel and rocket fire from Gaza in May.
