Israel strikes Gaza after rocket lands near Ashdod
GAZA: Israeli aircraft struck a number of sites in the Gaza Strip from the air early on Wednesday.
residents and the Israeli military said, after a rocket that Palestinian militants fired from the enclave landed near the Israeli port city of Ashdod.
The Israeli military said it struck four “terror infrastructures” in the southern Gaza Strip and that hits were confirmed. There were no reports of any casualties or damage.
Gaza residents said missiles struck several locations throughout the Gaza Strip, including places used as training camps by Islamic Jihad militants on sites that had been Israeli settlements before Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
Tuesday’s rocket landed near Ashdod some 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of the Gaza border and security forces were searching for remnants. It was the longest-range militant rocket strike since a truce that ended the 50-day war last year.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility in Gaza for the rocket launching.
“These strikes are a direct response to Hamas and the aggression against Israeli civilians originating from the Gaza Strip,” military spokesman Lieutenant-Coloner Peter Lerner said in a statement. “The reality that Hamas’ territory is used as a staging ground to attack Israel is unacceptable and intolerable and will bear consequences.”
