Israel carried out airstrikes on the Gaza Strip overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, hours after it intercepted a rocket fired from the Palestinian territory, some Agence France Presse correspondents and eyewitnesses said.

The strikes were followed by several more Palestinian rockets, and around 03:15 (01:15 GMT) more explosions and the sound of aircraft were heard from Gaza City, where the wind was blowing strongly.

In a statement released at 02:41 (00:41 GMT), the Israeli army confirmed that it was going to “strike the Gaza Strip”.

According to local security sources and eyewitnesses, the first strikes (at least seven) hit the training center of the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp (in the center of the Gaza Strip).

An AFP correspondent saw two new rockets fired at Israel from Gaza after the strikes, and witnesses spoke of new rockets being fired from various locations in the micro-territory of 2.3 million residents, which has been under Israeli blockade since Hamas took power in in 2007.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (FPEP), a secular Palestinian armed group, claimed that, among other things, it carried out “rocket fire (…) in response to Zionist aggression in the Gaza Strip.”

On the Israeli side, according to the army, warning sirens sounded in Sderot, a city in southern Israel adjacent to the Gaza Strip.

Local security sources said the second series of Israeli airstrikes targeted the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades training center southwest of Gaza City.

(source: Agerpres)