Israeli aircraft bombed a smuggling tunnel and a Palestinian militant training camp in the Gaza Strip today after a rocket was fired into Israel from the territory, the Israeli army and militants said.
The air strike caused damage but no casualties were reported. The rocket that militants launched on Saturday caused heavy damage to Israeli buildings close to the border with the Gaza Strip, the army said. Nobody was hurt.
The violence, after months of relative quiet, began with a rocket strike on the Israeli city of Ashkelon on Friday that was widely seen in Israel as a bid by militants to show displeasure over Arab League backing for direct Israeli-Palestinian talks.
The latest rocket launching was claimed by a Jihadist Salafi group that does not fall in line with the Gaza Strip’s Hamas Islamist rulers. But Israel put Hamas on notice that it would be held accountable for any strikes from the enclave it controls.
“I consider Hamas directly responsible for any attack emanating from the Gaza Strip in Israel’s direction and this is how the international community should also see matters,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
“Israel retains the right to defend its citizens,” he said in public remarks at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting.
Jihadist Salafi groups have repeatedly accused Hamas of preventing them from launching rockets at Israel and say it sometimes arrests those trying to do so.
On Friday, Israel responded to the rocket attack on Ashkelon, which damaged property but caused no casualties, with air strikes that killed a Hamas military commander in the Gaza Strip.
Israel staged a devastating three-week offensive against Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009 with the stated aim of halting rocket attacks from the territory.
The army said some 110 rockets and mortar rounds have been fired at Israel from Gaza this year.
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