The IDF fired two missiles during a defensive air strike into northern Gaza Friday, killing one terrorist and injuring two others. The group was planting explosives along the route of the border fence between Gaza and Israel.
The strike came against armed gunmen who had repeatedly been making “suspicious movements” along the fence, according to an IDF spokesman.
“We are continuously acting against terror cells that try to carry out attacks along the border fence,” a Southern Command officer said. “Usually it is the ground forces that operate in the area, but helicopters were used this case due to operational considerations. Anyone who approaches the security fence will be killed.” 
According to the IDF, terrorists have planted more than 40 bombs along the Israeli border fence since the November ceasefire
The helicopter strike was the first since Israel declared a ceasefire with the Palestinian Authority in November. While Israel has refrained from operating in Gaza during the period, terrorists from the region have pounded Israeli towns with several hundred Kassam rockets.
Another rocket slammed into a factory in the industrial section of Sderot Saturday afternoon. No injuries are reported in the attack, but the factory’s warehouse was damaged in the rocket strike.
In addition to the rocket fire, armed groups in the Strip have continuously taken part in terror activities, including the smuggling of weapons, ammunitions, and money into the strip. According to the IDF, terrorists have planted more than 40 bombs along the Israeli border fence since the November ceasefire.
Earlier this week, Defense Minister Amir Peretz gave the green light to the IDF to begin operating in Gaza, in a limited fashion.
Peretz, a resident of the Kassam-battered town of Sderot, has taken a great deal of heat from the political and military establishments with regard to his handling of the defense post. Most of the criticism attacks Peretz over the failed war in Lebanon this past summer, while relatively few critics have admonished Peretz for remaining outside Gaza while lawlessness and terror have festered since the ceasefire.
Peretz stated Friday interview in the Yediot Ahronot daily Hebrew newspaper, that he intends to step-down as Defense Minister following primary elections for the Labor Party chairman on May 28. Peretz has stated earlier that he will instead demand the Finance Portfolio should he win the primary.
In the interview, Peretz fired back at critics of his handling of the defense portfolio, particularly during the summer war against Hizbullah, claiming his lack of military of experience had little to due with the perceived failure in the conflict.
"At the moment, criticism is being tossed at me as a result of a war that revealed failures and created difficult feelings among the Israeli public,” Peretz stated. “I think that they are judging this war in a negative manner and unjustifiably so.”
Peretz asserted that his predecessors in the nation’s top security post were equally to blame for the war’s outcome.
“If all the previous defense ministers were so good, if they had left behind them a glorious legacy, all I would have had to do two months after I entered my position, after the war broke out, was to push some button, and the machine would have worked all by itself."
