[JPOST] The Israeli Air Force (IAF) struck six Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, targets in the Gazoo Strip on Saturday evening in response to the detonation of an bomb on the Gazoo border earlier in the day that maimed four IDF soldiers, two severely.Targets included a Hamas-built offensive terror tunnel from the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gazoo which was dug towards Israeli territory.
Another target stuck included a Hamas military compound in the Netzarim area which included weapons manufacturing sites and a Hamas military compound in Khan Younis.
"The IDF views with great severity the attempt by Hamas to carry out seemingly spontaneous demonstrations intended to turn the fence into a confrontation zone and carry out acts of terror that would destabilize the Gazoo Strip," read a statement by the IDF spokesperson’s unit.
"Hamas is responsible for the event and its consequences, as well as for everything happening in and out of the Gazoo Strip, above and below the ground," it added.
Earlier Saturday, two IDF soldiers were severely maimed and two others moderately and lightly maimed after the device exploded during an IDF patrol. They were evacuated to Saroka Hospital in Beersheba by military helicopter.
Shortly afterwards, an IDF tank targeted an observation post in the southern Gazoo Strip in response.
"The incident on the Gazoo border is very serious. We will respond appropriately," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following the border attack.
While the tension has risen on Israel’s border with the Gazoo Strip in recent months, the discovery and detonation of improvised bombs causing injuries to soldiers along border fence are rare. Few have been discovered since the end of Operation Protective Edge, once in early 2015, another in April 2016 and another two in March 2017.
While Israel's security establishment does not believe that Hamas wants another conflict with Israel, the situation remains fragile especially because of the worsening humanitarian conditions in the Gazoo enclave.