2 Palestinian men armed with grenade and knife enter Israel from Gaza

Marcy Oster

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Two Palestinian men crossed into Israel from Gaza armed with a grenade and a knife.

The men were arrested by Israeli soldiers on Tuesday morning shortly after they crossed the security fence at the border between Israel and the southern Gaza Strip, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

They were turned over for questioning to the Israeli Security Agency, or Shin Bet.

The infiltration comes a day after four Palestinian men entered Israel through the security fence near Kibbutz Kissufim in southern Israel.

Also on Monday, Gazan Palestinians sent four kites carrying firebombs over the border fence. The kites touched down in a wheat field in southern Israel, setting fire to the crop. Some 25 acres of wheat were burned in the attack.

The explosives-laden kites are an escalation of the weekly protests at the Gaza-Israel border, called the March of Return, which are scheduled to end on May 14, the 70th anniversary according to the Gregorian calendar of the birth of the modern State of Israel, which the Arab world calls the Nakba, or Catastrophe.

On Friday, the kite that was flown over the border carrying a firebomb was decorated with a green swastika.  Several fires have been set by such explosive-carrying kites in recent days.

A masked man from central Gaza who said he was among those preparing the kites told the Al-Jazeera news channel that: “These are our lands, and we have the right to return to them. We say to them, we will not let them sow our lands and enjoy them.