IDF Retaliates After Gunfire Aimed at Troops; Two Hamas Terrorists Killed

The IDF said Tuesday morning that in retaliation for a shooting attack against an IDF force in the northern Gaza Strip, an IDF tank fired at a Hamas target from which the gunfire originated.

B’chasdei Shamayim, there are no injuries to IDF soldiers as a result of the attack.

The IDF released footage of the incident. One of the grainy black and white video clips shows two men in a watchtower, one appears to open fire as puffs of smoke burst in front of him. The video then cuts to separate footage of a shell hitting the post and an explosion.

Two Palestinians were killed after the Israeli shelling. The two were pronounced dead on the site before being transferred to the Indonesian Hospital. Witnesses identified the two terrorists as Ahmad Murjan and Abed al-Hafez al-Silawi. Sources confirmed that Murjan and al-Silawi were members of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement.

Israel has lost tracts of farmland and forest to fires started by kites and helium balloons laden with incendiary material which have caused fires in Israeli forests and farmlands and flown over the border by Palestinians in Gaza.

U.N. and Egyptian-led efforts are under way to mediate a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas that would end a four-month upsurge of terrorism along the Israel-Gaza border.