Hamas said on Sunday that its armed wing had fired rockets at Israeli forces near the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Gaza and Israel. Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster, reported that the attack injured several people.
The Israeli military said about 10 rockets had been fired from an area near the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt toward Kerem Shalom.
Kerem Shalom is one of the few crossings through which humanitarian aid can enter the Gaza Strip. After Sunday’s attack, the army said it was closed to aid trucks.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry condemned the attack and said it showed that Hamas was not interested in aid entering the territory, parts of which, according to a United Nations official, are experiencing “a full-blown famine.”
The ministry said that while the army was “providing humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, terrorists are firing rockets towards the same area.”
“Israel remains committed to providing life-saving aid, while Hamas remains committed to destroying lives,” he added.
After the attack, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister and a far-right member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, urged Netanyahu to authorize a long-awaited military assault on Rafah.
“We did not attack Gaza and we arrived on October 7,” Ben-Gvir said in a statement. published online. “We did not attack Rafah and received a precision strike, Netanyahu, go to Rafah now!”