The Israeli Air Force conducted an air strike early this morning, during which it targeted a tunnel in the northern Gaza Strip, which the military said belonged to the Islamist Hamas organization. In addition to destroying the tunnel, the Israeli air force also attacked two targets belonging to Hamas’s naval force. Palestinian sources told TV7 that there were no reported casualties. Meanwhile, IDF sources revealed to TV7 that the Israeli air strikes came in response to “the torching of a military position yesterday by Palestinian terrorists who crossed the border fence and the ongoing attempts to fly multi-rotors and kites into Israeli territory to set agricultural fields ablaze.”
Meanwhile, Egypt is reportedly applying pressure on the Islamist Hamas organization, which controls the Gaza Strip, as well as on the Palestinian Authority that rules over Palestinian residents of the West Bank, to reach an agreement that will allow for the Western-backed Palestinian Authority to resume its involvement in the enclave and promote aid projects for its residents. The goal is to promote, as early as in the next few months, international projects for water, electricity and health that were put on hold due to the ongoing rivalry between the two factions. An Egyptian official confirmed his country’s involvement in efforts to realize – what he termed as “a practical reconciliation understanding” that “could ultimately end the years long rifts and materialize must needed unity among Palestinians.”