Israel airstrikes target Hamas position in Gaza

GAZA CITY, PALESTINE

Israeli warplanes bombed a Hamas position in the east of the Gaza Strip on Friday, according to local sources.

Israeli aircrafts targeted an observation point affiliated with the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of resistance movement Hamas, which has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007.

There has been no information about the casualties yet.

At least three Palestinians, including a child, were killed and 80 others, including 18 children, injured on Friday by the Israeli army near the Gaza-Israel buffer zone.

On Friday, Palestinians converged on the border area to take part in weekly demonstrations against Israel’s decades-long occupation.

Since the rallies began March 30, scores of Palestinians have been martyred -- and thousands injured -- by Israeli troops deployed along the other side of the buffer zone.

Protesters demand the “right of return” to their homes and villages in historical Palestine from which they were driven in 1948 to make way for the new state of Israel.

They also demand an end to Israel’s 11-year blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has gutted the coastal enclave’s economy and deprived its more than 2 million inhabitants of many basic commodities.

Reporting by Said Ibicioglu; Writing by Sibel Ugurlu