ISRAELI fighter jets Monday night attacked posts and facilities of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Palestinian security sources and eyewitnesses said.

The strikes, which had targeted military posts belonging to Hamas’ armed wing al-Qassam Brigades near the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, caused severe damage to training facilities, with no immediate report of injuries, the sources told Xinhua.

Huge explosions were heard in the area, and Hamas militants fired back at the attacking war jets, eyewitnesses said.

The airstrikes on Hamas facilities were a response to the earlier launching of incendiary balloons from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, said an Israeli army spokesman in a press statement.

The Israeli fighter jets struck a factory that produces cement used for building underground tunnels and another factory that manufactures rockets and makeshift projectiles, the spokesman added.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said that the airstrikes on the Gaza Strip “express the Israeli failure to confront the struggle of the Palestinian people, mainly after the escape of six Palestinian prisoners from an Israeli jail.”

(Xinhua)