A military aircraft on Friday opened fire on a group of Palestinians who were gearing up to launch incendiary balloons over the Israel-Gaza Strip border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The incident comes after nearly three weeks in which Palestinian arson terrorism has ebbed after wreaking havoc on Israeli communities near the border in near-daily assaults over the course of three months.
Hamas, the terrorist group that controls Gaza, has also urged Palestinian demonstrators to stage mass protests near the border on Friday after weeks of relative calm.
Also on Friday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warned that any cease-fire agreement reached between Israel and Hamas could cost Israel its relationship with Ramallah.
The London-based Al-Hayat newspaper quoted senior Palestinian officials as saying that Abbas has threatened to sever all ties with Israel if Ramallah is excluded from the negotiations, as it has been so far.
Abbas recently admitted that Ramallah was actively trying to torpedo Egypt's efforts to broker a long-term cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. He argued that Hamas, which ousted Abbas' Fatah-led government from Gaza in a 2007 military coup, lacks the authority to engage in any type of negotiations with Israel.
The rivalry between Hamas and Fatah has intensified over the past year after Abbas imposed economic sanctions on Gaza in an effort to wrestle control of Gaza from Hamas.
A Ramallah official also noted that Abbas will not meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York later this month, as he was "not invited to do so."
Abbas has refused to engage with Trump's Middle East envoys since the American president recognized Jerusalem as the Israeli capital on Dec. 6 and moved the American Embassy there.
In a conference call with several dozen American Jewish leaders on Thursday, Trump said that his administration would not give aid to the Palestinian Authority or to the United Nations' Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, which the U.S. cut last week, unless the Palestinians express willingness to resume the peace process, which has been frozen since 2014.
