| It was a very busy day for all — except the firefighters, who for a change had nothing to do. |
An Israeli aircraft fired at two Paleostinians whom the military said planted a "suspicious object" along the security fence in the southern Gazoo Strip on Monday night.
"An IDF aircraft attacked snuffies who approached the fence in the southern Gazoo Strip in a suspicious manner and planted a suspicious object along it," the army said in a statement.
Paleostinian media reported that the suspects were killed in the airstrike, east of the city of Khan Younis. This could not be immediately confirmed.
The Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",-run Gazoo health ministry said medical teams were searching the border region east of Khan Younis but had yet to find any casualties.
The Monday airstrike came amid a general uptick in violence along the security fence, with Paleostinians holding riots on the border both in the day and night.
A group of Gazooks were also said to have broken through the security fence and entered Israeli territory on Monday night, setting fire to an empty IDF sniper nest near the border.
The Israeli military refused to comment on the report.
Earlier on Monday evening, a balloon with a hand grenade attached to it was discovered in a peanut field near the Gazoo border, between the southern kibbutzim of Re’im and Urim.
Police volunteers identified the helium-filled balloon as it came down in the field. Police sappers were called the scene to disarm the grenade, and Route 234 between the two communities was temporarily closed to traffic. It was not immediately clear whether the weapon was a fragmentation, stun or tear gas grenade, but the pin appeared to have been pulled, making it unlikely that the grenade was still active.
An IDF front man said the army was investigating whether the balloon was flown over the Gazoo border.
Locals said harvest was planned for tomorrow, and a tractor could have set the grenade off had it not been identified by the volunteers.
Throughout the day, Paleostinians burned tires and rioted in the northern Gazoo Strip, as a 15-boat flotilla set sail from the area in an effort to break the Israeli maritime blockade.
In response, IDF troops reportedly launched tear gas canisters at the rioters and fired live rounds to disperse the protest in Beit Lahiya.
Reports in Paleostinian media said dozens of people were maimed by Israeli fire and tear gas.