GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Thosusands of Palestinians held protests along the volatile Gaza-Israel frontier Friday, after a night of Israeli airstrikes in retaliation for a rocket that hit a building in southern Israel.
The flare-up, which came after Israel this week closed Gaza’s offshore waters to fishermen in response to the launch of incendiary balloons, breaks a month-long lull.
Gaza’s health ministry said 46 Palestinian demonstrators were wounded by Israeli fire. It did not elaborate.
Gaza’s Hamas rulers launched the protests more than a year ago, demanding an end to a crippling blockade Israel and Egypt imposed when the militant group seized the territory by force in 2007.
Earlier on Friday, the Israeli military said it struck several militant sites in the Gaza Strip in response to the rocket fire.
The army said Israeli warplanes attacked “terror infrastructure” in Gaza, including military and naval compounds belonging to Hamas.
There was no immediate retaliatory rocket fire from Gaza, or reports of wounded or dead on either side.
The army said the rocket launched late Thursday hit a religious school in the Israeli border of Sderot.
A cease-fire between Israel and Hamas reached in May halted the worst bout of violence since a 2014 war.
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