A man carries a wounded young Palestinian to al-Shifa hospital after Israeli air strikes in Gaza City.
Eleven others wounded as warplanes target five sites across terrirory in biggest attack since three-week offensive in 2009
Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip have killed a Hamas commander and wounded 11 other people.
Warplanes fired missiles at five targets across Gaza, including Gaza City, last night for the first time since Israel's three-week offensive in the territory ended 18 months ago.
Hamas, the Islamist group that controls the territory, said the man killed was Issa Batran, 42, a commander of its military wing in central Gaza and a rocket maker. Eight of its supporters and three civilians were also injured.
The air raids came after a Palestinian rocket attack struck the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon on Friday, causing no casualties but damaging buildings and cars in the city.
The city's mayor said the attack was the most serious since the end of Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli offensive that left around 1,400 Palestinians dead, in January last year. Renegade militant groups have fired dozens of rockets and mortars into southern Israel since then, although most of those attack have been ineffective, with rockets mostly landing in open fields.
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, earlier said he took the rocket attack on Ashkelon, which lies seven miles north of Gaza, "very seriously". No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The cross-border violence has raised concerns of further escalation.
A Hamas spokesman said the group would avenge Batran's killing.
"Hamas will not be quiet over the blood of its martyrs," said Hamad al-Rakabi. "Israel is opening all the gates of fire. This blood will cascade into rage and fire."
The targets hit in last night's air strike included a military
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment