GAZA, June 17: The Israeli army demolished a Palestinian industrial complex on Monday that it said had been a launching point for attacks, but local Palestinians called just another target of a punitive Israeli action.

“I hate them,” eight-year-old Hassan Kurdeya said of the Israelis as he watched a bulldozer raze his family’s woodworking foundry at the complex near Gaza city.

“They do not like to leave us alone, they kill people and demolish homes and factories.”

Also destroyed was the Gaza Strip’s sole factory for producing bottled oxygen, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

Palestinian medical officials said work had continued there despite the closure order, and in coordination with Israel, but Israeli military sources denied this.

Palestinian witnesses saw smoke spiralling up from the complex site, amid the arid dunes of the coastal strip.—Reuters