Hamas says 'ready for any military escalation against Gaza'

Khalil al-Hayya says Palestinian resistance 'is vigilant and ready for Israeli military escalation'

GAZA:

A senior Hamas leader on Wednesday said that the Israeli threats "do not scare us and we are ready to confront any military escalation against the Gaza Strip."

Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza, told reporters that the Palestinian resistance "is vigilant and ready for any Israeli military escalation ... we are not afraid of the threat of assassination."

"Shelling will be met by shelling, missiles will face missiles, and killing will be met by killing," al-Hayya said, stressing that "the real problem is the existence of the Israeli occupation in Palestine and its dangerous consequences."

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened that Israel might resort to a "policy of assassinations" if Hamas does not stop launching incendiary balloons from the Gaza Strip towards Israel.

Israel's army said its warplanes struck military targets in Gaza on Tuesday night as retaliation for the explosive balloons, and a rocket launched earlier from the Palestinian enclave.

"During the strike, a military compound belonging to one of the special arrays" of Hamas was struck, an Israeli military spokesperson said in a statement.

It said the attack was a response to a rocket fired from Gaza, which exploded on an empty field in southern Israel, and dozens of explosive balloons that sparked fires.

The violence came amid weeks of rising tensions, which was triggered by Israel's refusal to allow the transfer of Qatari money to the besieged Palestinian enclave.

Israel and Hamas have fought three rounds of war, with occasional bursts of violence in between. Over the past months, both sides kept an unofficial cease-fire.