GAZA CITY/JERUSALEM  - Seven Palestinians were wounded in a series of Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip early Sunday morning, two days after fire exchanges that left three dead from both sides, whereas Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought a way to implement a Supreme Court ruling to remove five settler buildings erected on private Palestinian land without alienating his political supporters.

According to emergency medical sources in Gaza, the seven were wounded in four airstrikes, two carried out at targets east of Khan Yunis, in the southern part of the Palestinian territory, and two that hit Beit Layiha in the northern section of the Strip. The Israeli army confirmed that its planes had carried out attacks, and said they were retribution for a militant attack from Gaza that had resulted in an Israeli fatality. “Israeli aircraft targeted three weapon manufacturing facilities and the central Gaza Strip, as well as two terror tunnels in the northern and southern Gaza Strip,” a statement from the military read.
“Direct hits were confirmed.”
“This is in response to the infiltration on Friday morning, in which Staff Sergeant Nitnel Moshiashvilli was killed by terrorist fire adjacent to the security fence,” said the statement.
Military sources said that the sites that had been targeted belonged to Hamas, which rules the territory, and the radical Islamic Jihad group.
Netanyahu’s right-wing government has until July 1 to carry out the court’s decision but it faces an earlier deadline, Wednesday, when ultranationalist legislators plan to submit a bill to legalise the dwellings retroactively, a law he opposes.
About 30 families live in the five three-storey stone apartment buildings in the Ulpana neighbourhood of the Beit El settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Government officials said on Sunday Netanyahu had proposed a plan that would avoid demolishing the homes. Engineers would instead cut through their foundations and move them to another part of the settlement where no land ownership claim is pending in court.