Israel hits Hamas positions in Gaza

Israeli forces attacked Hamas positions in Gaza early on Saturday allegedly in response to rockets fired from the Palestinian enclave.

The attack came hours after two Palestinian teenagers were killed by Israeli fire during clashes on the Gaza border.

A Hamas security source said there were no casualties resulting from the Israeli strikes.

During border clashes on Friday, two Palestinians aged 14 and 17 were shot dead by Israeli forces, the Gaza health ministry said, with another 46 Palestinians wounded.

Palestinians have been holding regular mass protests along the fortified border since March 2018.

The protesters have called on Israel to end its crippling siege of the coastal enclave and demanded the right to return to lands their families fled during the war that accompanied the creation of Israel in 1948.

At least 308 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza since the protests began, the majority during the demonstrations.

The protests have calmed in recent months.

Israel and Gaza’s hardliner rulers Hamas have fought three wars since 2008.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that on Friday the United States will present its long-awaited Middle East peace plan within weeks as he acknowledged a difficult task.

President Donald Trump’s administration pushed back the plan after Israel unexpectedly headed back to new elections to be held September 17 and fresh questions arose Thursday when Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s adviser on the Middle East, resigned.

But Pompeo, responding to a question at Kansas State University, dismissed speculation of a substantial new delay.

“We’ve been consulting broadly throughout the region for two and a half years now and I think in the coming weeks we’ll announce our vision,” Pompeo said. “And hopefully the world... will see that as a building block, a basis on which to move forward,” he said.

He called Middle East peace “a difficult problem, one that ultimately those two peoples will have to resolve for themselves, but we’ve worked hard on that.”

The Palestinian Authority has cut off formal contact with the Trump administration, saying it is not an honest broker after taking a series of unabashedly pro-Israel decisions such as recognising occupied Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Agencies