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Palestinians open fire on Israeli troops, no casualties reported

Xinhua, January 25, 2016 Adjust font size:

Palestinians opened fire at Israeli soldiers operating in the West Bank early Monday, causing no casualties, the Israeli army said.

The soldiers were operating at the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank overnight, when shots were fired at them by assailants, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said in a statement.

The IDF spokesperson said that during "routine activity" in Palestinian villages the soldiers recovered weapon, including rifles, munitions and pipe bombs, and arrested eight Palestinians, three of them in Jenin.

The IDF activity in the West Bank is carried out amid an ongoing wave of violence, which started in October, and had claimed the lives of 24 Israelis and one U.S. citizen in lone-wolf stabbing, shooting and vehicular attacks. More than 150 Palestinians were killed during this period.

The Israeli army had also operated overnight along the Gaza Strip enclave, after three rockets were fired from the enclave towards southern Israel. No injuries or damages were reported as part of the rockets fire.

In response to the barrage, the Israeli Air Force struck targets near the cities of Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah in the southern and central Gaza Strip.

The IDF said in a statement it targeted a Hamas military facility in the central Gaza Strip, and charged Hamas is responsible for any attack emanating from the strip.

"Hamas is responsible and is accountable for all attacks from the Gaza Strip," Peter Lerner, the IDF spokesperson, said in a statement.

Sporadic rocket attacks have taken place from the Gaza Strip towards communities in southern Israel in the past several months, after a relative calm, following a 50-day war in the summer of 2014 which claimed the lives of more than 2,000 Palestinians and over 70 Israelis.

These attacks are mostly attributed to Salafist organizations operating against Hamas' orders in the Gaza Strip, but Israeli authorities consider Hamas, which took control over the enclave in 2007, as responsible for rocket attacks from its turf. Endit