After preaching peace to the people of Israel and Palestine, one of the first pieces of news received by Anthony Blinken on his return to the United was that Palestinians had launched a rocket targeting Israel. Not long afterwards, Israel said it intercepted the rocket, but a retaliation soon followed. 

On Thursday, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) launched an airstrike towards Gaza. The Israeli military said the airstrike targeted a weapon manufacturing site belonging to Hamas and a chemical manufacturing site belonging to the same group. 

“In response to the rocket launch from Gaza into Israel earlier today, IDF fighter jets struck a production site for raw chemical material production, along with a weapon manufacturing site belonging to the Hamas Terrorist Organization,” the IDF wrote on Thursday. “The IDF holds Hamas responsible for all terrorism activity emanating from Gaza and it will face the consequences of the security violations against Israel.” 

Satellite images of the air strike were shared by the IDF, showing the area targeted by the fighter jets. There was no official death toll or reports of injuries at the time of this report. 

Earlier this week, the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited Israel and Palestine and explained why both sides need to maintain peace amid the rising tension between both sides. 

“Calls for vengeance against more innocent victims are not the answer. And acts of retaliatory violence against civilians are never justified,” Secretary Blinken stated on his visit to Jerusalem. 

However, it appears that for every attack by one side, the other side will not fail to retaliate or at least plan a retaliation. Following the missile launch from Gaza on Wednesday, Police Minister, Ben Gvir, said he was examining how best to respond to the attack and hinted at the possibility of treating Palestinian prisoners harshly.

“The shooting from Gaza will not stop me from continuing to work to abolish the camp conditions of murderous terrorists,” Ben Gvir wrote. “I asked for an urgent cabinet meeting this evening to examine ways of responding to the launch of the missiles from Gaza.”

Already, tough prison conditions are being implemented in Israeli prisons for Palestinian prisoners whom the far-right Israeli government describes as “terrorists.”

In the past weeks, there has been growing tension on both sides after Israeli forces invaded a Palestinian camp and killed ten people. It was soon followed by a Palestinian killing seven worshipers outside a Synagogue in Jerusalem.