During the first half of January 2020 a decision was made in the Gaza Strip to renew the launching of balloons, which had stopped in March 2019. Since the decision was put into practice dozens of balloons have been launched into Israeli territory. As opposed to the past, most of the balloon clusters had IEDs attached to them (until March 2019 most of them were incendiary balloons). Most of the IED balloons were observed and located in the western Negev, but some of them flew as far as southern and central Israeli sites, such as Ashdod, Beersheba, Kibbutz Sde Boker and Beit Shemesh. Some of the IEDs exploded, either in the air or on the ground. So far no casualties or damage have been reported. The balloons are launched by squads affiliated with the military wings of Hamas and the other terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip, but sometimes they prefer not to identify themselves.

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