Israel bombs Hamas sites in Gaza; 3 injured

Palestinian children look through a hole in a sheet metal fence outside their home in Gaza City on Tuesday. (AFP)

GAZA CITY: Three people were injured, including one critically, overnight Tuesday as Israel bombed Hamas sites in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security and medical sources said, hours after a rocket hit the Jewish state.
A security source told AFP that Israeli warplanes had struck two bases belonging to Hamas’ military wing in northern Gaza, causing significant damage.
A medical official at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said three people were being treated for injuries, including a 26-year-old man who was in critical condition after being struck in the head with shrapnel.
The Israeli army confirmed the strikes, saying they were in retaliation for a rocket fired a few hours earlier from Gaza, which landed in southern Israel.
That incident caused no casualties or damage, a military spokesperson added.
Israel and militant Hamas, who run Gaza, have fought three wars since 2008.
Since the most recent conflict in 2014, a fragile cease-fire has been observed along the largely closed border.
Missiles and rockets are periodically fired into Israel, generally by militant groups opposed to Hamas.
But Israel holds Hamas responsible for all rocket fire from Gaza, regardless of who carried it out, and usually retaliates within hours.
Guterres to visit Palestine
Sources said that Antonio Guterres will make his first visit as UN secretary-general to Israel and the Palestinian territories later this month for a firsthand look at a conflict that has been on the front burner of the UN for 70 years.
The Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said the trip “comes at a critical time in which there are attacks against the two-state solution,” which would see an independent Palestinian state existing side-by-side with Israel in peace.
The secretary-general “is adamant in emphasizing that there is no Plan B to the two-state solution,” Mansour told The Associated Press. “So to emphasize the importance of the two-state solution, and abiding by it and respecting the global consensus around it, is something that I think the Israeli leadership needs to listen to.”
Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon said the trip “will provide an excellent opportunity for him to see firsthand both the challenges and the opportunities that we face in our region, including Hezbollah’s activities in Lebanon in violations of Security Council resolutions.”
Guterres’ first stop will be Israel on Aug. 28 followed by a visit to Palestinian leaders including President Mahmoud Abbas on Aug. 29 in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Mansour said. The secretary-general will then travel to Gaza on Aug. 30 where he is expected to visit some projects of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
Danon first mentioned the trip last month. It has not been officially announced by the UN.
Tel Aviv to permit Jerusalem Palestinians to visit Gaza
Also on Tuesday, Israeli sources said Tel Aviv will allow Palestinian business executives from Jerusalem to visit the Gaza Strip for the first time in years.
COGAT, the Israeli agency, said it would allow in small numbers of businesspeople from annexed east Jerusalem looking to invest in the coastal territory.
But in an Arabic-language Facebook post late Monday, COGAT said it would allow in “businessmen and others who want to improve and strengthen the economy, infrastructure and humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip.”
Israeli-Palestinian tensions escalated recently over the holiest site in Jerusalem when Israel installed metal detectors after Arab gunmen killed two Israeli policemen there in mid-July. Muslims protested and Israel removed the devices after intervention from the US, Jordan and others.