Israeli warplanes attack Gaza after retaliation over al-Aqsa raid

The Israeli regime's warplanes reportedly attack targets inside the Gaza Strip following the firing of retaliatory rockets from the direction of the coastal strip over the regime's savage attacks on Palestinian worshippers inside the al-Aqsa Mosque's compound in the occupied city of al-Quds.

The aircraft targeted the Hay al-Zeitoun area in the south of Gaza City with three missiles, besides attacking various other areas across the Tel Aviv-occupied enclave on Thursday. 

An explosion rang out in the city of Rafah, which is likewise located in the southern Gaza Strip.

Palestinian sources identified the other sites that have been targeted by the air raids as a site belonging to the resistance south of Gaza City, an observatory post east of city, an agricultural land in the town of Beit Hanoun in northeastern Gaza, and a location east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Sources inside Gaza told Lebanon's al-Mayadeen television network that all the sites that have been targeted in the Israeli aerial aggression have been evacuated.

It took the resistance members, meanwhile, a mere several seconds to respond to the airstrikes with rocket barrages. 

The resistance's retaliation set off sirens in the city of Sderot as well as the illegal settlements of Nirim and Nir Am near Gaza's border in the occupied territories.

Earlier in the day, Hamas vowed that Palestinians will not remain indifferent and inactive in the face of the Israeli regime's ongoing acts of aggression targeting the al-Aqsa Mosque's compound in the holy occupied city of al-Quds.

"Our Palestinian people and the Palestinian resistance groups will not sit idly by" in the face of the occupying regime's "savage aggression" against al-Aqsa, said Ismail Haniyeh, who runs the Gaza Strip-based Palestinian resistance movement's Politburo.

In his statement, Haniyeh called on "all Palestinian organizations to unify their ranks and intensify their resistance against the Zionist occupation."

The Hamas official made the remarks following several days of aggression waged by the Israeli regime's forces against Palestinian worshippers at Al-Aqsa mosque

The violence has seen the regime's forces raiding the site and trying to evacuate the worshipers by firing stun grenades and rubber bullets. Worshipers threw objects at the Israeli troops in response.

The aggression began on Wednesday, when the forces attacked the compound, beating the Palestinian worshipers there before arresting and forcing out more than 350 of them. Dozens of Palestinians were wounded as a result of the troops' violence.

SS