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Two Israeli airstrikes target Gaza

Israeli warplanes have conducted airstrikes on two locations in the Gaza Strip, but there have been no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.

The attacks targeted the city of Dair al-Balah in central Gaza and the city of Rafah in the south, a Press TV correspondent said late on Tuesday night, shortly after the airstrikes.

Although Israeli military forces officially withdrew from Gaza in 2005, they still attack the territory often, frequently to bomb the tunnel network connecting Gaza to Egypt, saying Palestinian resistance fighters use the tunnels for storing and smuggling weapons.

But the Palestinians dismiss the allegations, arguing they have resorted to the underground tunnels to bring basic needs to the impoverished Gazans because the territory has been sealed by an Israeli blockade for over three years.

In September, the al-Mezan Center for Human Rights said that 160 Palestinians had lost their lives while digging cross-border tunnels. It blamed falling standards of living and unprecedented levels of unemployment, together with unrelenting poverty, as factors leading many young Gazans to risk their lives in tunnels to make a living.

Some of the victims were killed during Israeli bombardments of the tunnels, while others died after inhaling poisonous fumes released inside the tunnels by Egyptian security forces. Tunnel collapses account for the rest of the deaths.

After Israel’s assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters on May 31, in which nine civilians were killed, Tel Aviv slightly eased the land blockade of Gaza, allowing in more consumer goods.

However, the naval siege of the Gaza Strip remains in place, exports are banned, and imports of raw materials and construction materials are restricted.

In addition, Gaza has still not recovered from the December 2008-January 2009 Israeli war on the enclave, which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and inflicted over $1.6 billion in damage on its economy.

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