Israeli forces carried out deadly air strikes across the Gaza Strip on Sunday. Overnight air raids killed six Palestinian fighters, all members of Hamas, the Islamist movement that violently seized Gaza last year and that refuses to recognise Israel's right to exist.
The air attacks began just hours after militants detonated two booby-trapped vehicles disguised as Israeli military jeeps at the Kerem Shalom border crossing used to deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza, whose economy is crippled by an Israeli blockade.
The jeeps and an armoured vehicle approached the border under the cover of fog and mortar fire. The Israeli army said it foiled an attempt to detonate the third vehicle and killed four "terrorists" who were in it. A fourth booby-trapped vehicle approached the security fence near Kibbutz Nirim, just north of Kerem Shalom, but troops spotted it and blew it up before it could cause any harm, the army said.
The operation, which was claimed by Hamas, was the fifth time in 10 days that militants had attacked crossings with Israel. On April 9, two Israeli civilians were killed when Palestinian militants raided the Nahal Oz crossing that supplies virtually all of Gaza's fuel. "The terrorists planned to execute a wider attack," the army said, adding they may have intended to kidnap soldiers. "Hamas is exploiting the compassion and generosity of the State of Israel by targeting humanitarian crossings.
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