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Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Israel hits 20 targets in Gaza Strip in response to missile attacks

The Israeli army is ready for any scenario, says spoeksman

© AP Photo/Adel Hana

TEL AVIV, October 17. /TASS/. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have hit 20 military targets in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday in response to a missile attack on Israeli territory, said spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces Jonathan Conricus at a briefing for foreign journalists.

"We’ve hit 20 Hamas military targets in the Gaza Strip in response to a missile attack on Israel," he said. "Among these targets are a Hamas tunnel in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, production platforms for missiles and a mine of another tunnel on the coast." Conricus noted that two missiles fired from the Gaza Strip on Israel on Wednesday night were "home-produced medium-range missiles that only the Hamas movement and the Islamic Jihad Movement have." "We believe the Hamas movement to be responsible for the missile attack, and the Israeli army is ready for any scenario," he added.

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Israeli jets strike Palestinians plotting rocket attack on Gaza Strip

On Wednesday night Palestinian radicals launched a missile out of the Gaza Strip on Beersheba, a city of 200,000, in the south of Israel. The projectile hit a children’s bedroom in a house, the army press service reported. The mother of three had taken her family to a bomb shelter before that - right after an air raid warning in the city - so there were no victims. The second missile out of the Palestinian enclave was fired on the north and landed in the sea near Gush Dan, a conurbation in Israel, the Israeli state radio Kan reported.

It has been the first missile attack on Beersheba since August 9, which has not been targeted for four years. The Gaza Strip militants have not launched missiles on the north toward Tel Aviv since the end of Operation Defensive Edge in the Palestinian enclave, which was carried out in July-August 2014 and lasted 50 days.

On Wednesday, Israeli Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman ordered to close all border checkpoints on the border with the Gaza Strip and reduce the fishing zone in the Mediterranean Sea near the enclave from nine nautical miles (16.5 km) to three nautical miles (5.5 km) in response to missile attacks on Israeli territory. "Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman has ordered to close the Erez Crossing (used by civilians - TASS) and the Kerem Shalom Crossing (used for cargo transportation - TASS), as well as reduce the fishing zone near the Gaza Strip to three nautical miles," the Israeli Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

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FACTBOX: Collective Security Treaty Organization

The Collective Security Treaty came into force on April 20, 1994 to herald the emergence what would eventually become the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The six member-countries are Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan

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Funding will be provided from the federal, regional and local budgets, as well as taxes from gambling transferred to the organizer

Russian investigators start inquiry into financing of terrorism by US, NATO officials

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