Operation Pillar of Defense

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said May 5 he had ordered the military to launch further strikes on Gaza Strip militants in response to rocket fire from the territory, as an escalation entered its second day.

The worst escalation between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza since a 2014 war threatened to descend into full-blown conflict on Nov. 13 after further barrages of rocket fire and dozens more air strikes overnight.

The Israeli military says an officer was killed and another was moderately wounded during an operation in southeast Gaza Strip, involving an exchange of gunfire.

Israel's army said it had launched air strikes targeting Hamas in the Gaza Strip on July 14, following border clashes that saw a Palestinian teenager shot dead and many injured including an Israeli soldier.

Palestinian fishermen ride their boats as they return from fishing at the seaport of Gaza City early morning September 26, 2016. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem/File Photo

The latest escalation of fighting between Israel and Palestinian Hamas has pushed Gaza to the brink of war, the UN envoy for the Middle East warned the Security Council on Wednesday.
Nickolay Mladenov delivered the stark warning as the council remained deadlocked over how to respond to the flare-up between Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

A picture taken from Gaza City on May 29, 2018, shows a smoke billowing in the background following an Israeli air strike on the Palestinian enclave. Israel struck bases of militant groups in the Gaza Strip, the enclave's Islamist rulers Hamas said, hours after nearly 30 mortar shells were fired at the Jewish state. / AFP PHOTO / THOMAS COEX

Palestinian militants launched on May 29 their heaviest barrages against Israel since the 2014 Gaza war and Israeli aircraft struck back in a surge of fighting after weeks of border violence.

Israeli tank fire at an Islamic Jihad observation post killed two militants from the group in the southern Gaza Strip on May 27, Palestinian officials said.

More than 100 Palestinians were injured in yet another confrontation with Israeli soldiers on the border of the Gaza sector, local health authorities spokesman Ashraf al-Khyra said.

Protests with the common name "The Great March of Return" last for 9 weeks, although their scale is now more modest than before.