Israeli warplanes on Monday conducted strikes against nine Hamas “military targets” in the northern Gaza Strip in response to incendiary kites being sent into Israeli territory, the army said. The attacks targeted two Hamas military sites and a munitions manufacturing site, the military said in a statement, without specifying whether the raids had resulted in casualties. “Fire balloons” and kites carrying flammable material have become symbols of the Palestinian border protests in recent months. The Israeli army on Saturday wounded two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip attempting to launch incendiary balloons across the border into Israel, officials said. Since major border protests broke out at the end of March, more than 300 fires have devastated several thousand hectares of fields and shrubland, the Israeli fire service has said. According to Israel’s Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, 400 kites have been intercepted from some 600 launched since the start of the recent protests. Published in Daily Times, June 19th 2018.