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Tension continues to rise on Israel’s frontier with the Gaza Strip

Some 7,000 Palestinians participated in riots in the northern Gaza Strip. The rioters launched fireworks, hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at IDF soldiers who responded with crown-dispersal means. Fishing boats belonging to Palestinian fishermen also set sail towards Israel, prompting IDF soldiers to fire warning shots into the air. The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza reported that 93 Palestinians had been injured, 37 of them by live fire and the rest caused by tear gas inhalation. Thankfully, no IDF soldiers were injured as a result of the violence.

In addition to the clashes in Gaza, four fires broke out in Israeli communities adjacent to the border with the Palestinian enclave, due to incendiary kites and balloons, two of which occurred in Kibbutz Be’eri. Furthermore, one incendiary balloon which originated in the Gaza Strip landed in uninhabited territory near the central Israeli town of Modi’in. Police sappers who arrived at the scene assessed that the incendiary balloon was indeed launched from the Gaza Strip, and that the wind during the night blew it as far as Modi’in. That said, the incendiary balloon did not cause a fire in that area.