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The Israeli army said it had struck 18 targets in the Gaza Strip overnight Saturday and early Sunday after four soldiers were injured in an explosion on the border with the Palestinian enclave.
Jets and a tank targeted sites including a Hamas weapon-manufacturing and training infrastructure and a Hamas tunnel, the army said.
Salem Mohammed Sabah and Abdullah Ayman Sheikha, both 17, were killed in the army raids, Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman for the Hamas-run Health Ministry, said in a statement.
The strikes came after four soldiers were injured, two seriously, after an improvised explosive device detonated near them on Saturday on the southern border of the Gaza Strip.
IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus said the device had been planted there “undercover” of a riot organized by Hamas on Friday and had been attached to a flag.
“The Hamas terror organisation is accountable for this incident and its consequences, as well as everything happening in and from the Gaza Strip, above and below ground,” the army said in a statement.
Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassim said the Israeli strikes reflected “the pre-planned Israeli intention to escalate the situation in Gaza.”
Hamas did not take credit for the explosive device planted on the border.
The discovery or detonation of improvised explosive devices along the Gaza border is rare, according to the Jerusalem Post, with the most recent being two discovered in March.
Tensions between Palestinians and Israelis have been running high since December when US President Donald Trump recogniSed Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
There are also fears of a looming humanitarian crisis in Gaza amid a stifling decade-long Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the coastal enclave and a stalled attempt to reconcile rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah.
Hamas is considered a terrorist group by the European Union, United States and Israel.
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