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Israeli warplanes have carried out at least three airstrikes at the Rafah border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, witnesses say.
Some Rafah residents fled their homes in panic as an Israeli aircraft hit the area three times, Hamas officials said. There was no immediate report of casualties.
The Israeli army claimed that the airstrikes were carried out against "Hamas tunnels" in response to a Tuesday remote-control bomb attack along the Gaza border where one Israeli soldier was killed.
Israeli forces had responded to the airstrikes by killing a 24-year-old Palestinian farmer near the Kissufim crossing on the Gaza Strip border.
The border strikes come after Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni raised speculation of further military operations into Gaza on Monday by saying that Tel Aviv was likely to stage further attacks against the strip to halt what she called arms smuggling into the coastal silver.
Israel staged hundreds of attacks in a 23-day war against the Gaza Strip and destroyed many tunnels through which Hamas brings arms into the region.
More than 1330 people, a large number of them civilians, were killed and 5450 others were injured in the Israeli onslaught.
The border strikes come after Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni raised speculation of further military operations into Gaza on Monday by saying that Tel Aviv was likely to stage further attacks against the strip to halt what she called arms smuggling into the coastal silver.
Israel staged hundreds of attacks in a 23-day war against the Gaza Strip and destroyed many tunnels through which Hamas brings arms into the region.
More than 1330 people, a large number of them civilians, were killed and 5450 others were injured in the Israeli onslaught.
Hamas says that as a democratically-elected government it is entitled to have weapons in order to "defend" Palestinians against the Israeli occupiers of their native land.
"No one has the right to prevent the Palestinians from equipping themselves with weapons as long as the occupation continues," Hamas representative Osama Hamdan said in Lebanon.
Obu Obeida, a spokesman for the Hamas military wing Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, also touched on the issue last week, insisting that for a power that confronts the modern US-made weapons used by the Israeli military against the civilian Palestinian population cannot be considered illegal.
"Bringing arms into Gaza is not smuggling. The natural situation would be for all Arab and Muslim countries, along with the rest of the free world, to formally allow weapons into the Strip," he said.
Obeida added that Gazans were defending their land using light hand-made weapons and without tanks and warplanes.
"No one has the right to prevent the Palestinians from equipping themselves with weapons as long as the occupation continues," Hamas representative Osama Hamdan said in Lebanon.
Obu Obeida, a spokesman for the Hamas military wing Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, also touched on the issue last week, insisting that for a power that confronts the modern US-made weapons used by the Israeli military against the civilian Palestinian population cannot be considered illegal.
"Bringing arms into Gaza is not smuggling. The natural situation would be for all Arab and Muslim countries, along with the rest of the free world, to formally allow weapons into the Strip," he said.
Obeida added that Gazans were defending their land using light hand-made weapons and without tanks and warplanes.
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