An Israel Defence Force (IDF) fighter jet dropped a bomb close to the Israeli community on the Gaza border on Tuesday, with the IDF describing it as a ‘technical malfunction’.
The bomb fell close to the Nir Yithzak kibbutz adjacent to southern Gaza, media reports said.
“A short while ago, a munition fell from an IDF fighter jet that was on its way to a mission in the Gaza Strip. The munition landed in an open area near Nir Yitzhak due to a technical malfunction,” the Israeli military said in a short statement as quoted by CNN.
The IDF did not clarify the type of bomb that its jet dropped near the Israeli community on the Gaza border.
There are no injuries as a result of the bomb falling, the military told CNN, and the incident is now under review.
A spokesman for Nir Yitzhak told the American news channel that the bomb landed in the village’s farm area.
Nir Yitzhak was one of the areas that were attacked by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
The Israeli military commenced its offensive on Gaza on March 18, ending the two-month ceasefire with Hamas.
Gaza Aid Crisis Worsens
The humanitarian situation in Gaza is now likely the worst it has been in the 18 months since the outbreak of hostilities, the UN relief coordination office, OCHA, reported on Monday.
“It has now been a month and a half since any supplies were last allowed through the crossings into Gaza,” UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told journalists at the daily media briefing in New York.
OCHA said about 70 per cent of the Gaza Strip is currently under displacement orders or in “no-go” zones.
Over the weekend, the Israeli military issued four new displacement orders, some of them following reports of Palestinian rocket fire.
The UN was able to “relocate some existing fuel stocks from areas under displacement orders to locations where they are more easily accessible by humanitarian workers,” said Mr. Dujarric.
A surge in attacks causing mass civilian casualties has been reported by UN partners on the ground, according to OCHA.
Gaza Hospital Struck
The Al Ahli hospital in Gaza City was targeted by an Israeli strike and has now gone out of service, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.
Additionally, a UN warehouse in Gaza City and a community food distribution point in Khan Younis were hit and damaged by Israeli strikes over the weekend.
(With inputs from IBNS)
