Hamas said Sunday that its armed wing fired rockets at Israeli forces near the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Gaza and Israel. Kan, Israel's public broadcaster, reported that the attack injured several people.
The Israeli military said about 10 rockets were fired from an area near the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt towards Kerem Shalom.
Kerem Shalom is one of the few crossings through which humanitarian aid can enter the Gaza Strip. After Sunday's attack, the army said it was closed to aid trucks passing through.
Israel's Foreign Ministry condemned the attack and said it showed that Hamas was not interested in getting aid into the territory, parts of which, according to a United Nations official, are experiencing “a real famine.”
The ministry said that while the army was “facilitating humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, terrorists fired rockets in the same area.”
“Israel remains committed to providing life-saving aid while Hamas remains committed to destroying lives,” he added.
After the attack, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's national security minister and a far-right member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet, urged Netanyahu to authorize a long-awaited military strike in Rafah.
“We did not attack Gaza and we got October 7,” Ben-Gvir said in a statement published online. “We didn't attack Rafah and we got a precision attack, Netanyahu, go to Rafah now!”