Palestinians respond to Israeli airstrikes

Israeli army said Thursday that two rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israel. “Two rockets had been fired from the Gaza Strip into Israeli territory in a pre-dawn attack,” the army said in a statement. “The rockets appear to have exploded in open areas, without causing injuries or damages,” it added. Earlier, Israeli fighter jets carried out two airstrikes in the Gaza Strip following the launch of incendiary balloons from the Palestinian territory on Wednesday. Palestinian activists have been flying burning kites and balloons into Israel as part of ongoing anti-occupation protests along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone. According to Israeli officials, the improvised aerial weapons have caused a number of fires inside Israeli settlements, causing significant material damage but not resulting in any deaths or injuries. Since March of last year, more than 250 Palestinians have been martyred and thousands more injured by Israeli army fire during protests demanding the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in historical Palestine from which they were driven in 1948 to make way for the new state of Israel.