Palestinian militants groups launched five homemade rockets on Tuesday dawn at Israeli southern city Sderout, prompting fears of increasing Israeli military escalation against the Gaza Strip.

Saraya al-Quds of the Islamic Jihad (Holy War) claimed responsibility for launching four homemade rockets at Sderout that caused no casualties.

Although the Israeli army threatened to launch a large-scale military operation against rockets' launchers, the group said in a leaflet that the barrage was to retaliate the Israeli crimes and killings against the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian shelling coincided with an Israeli air raid at a metal workshop in Gaza that Israel said it was used to produce crude rockets. No injuries reported in the after midnight shelling.

Earlier, al-Nasser Saladin Brigades of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), said it had launched a holy rocket that landed near the car of Israeli President Moshe Katsav.

The group said that at the time, Katsav was visiting the people of Sderout who protested against the continuation of launching Palestinian rockets on their town.

The PRC said the shelling was part of an ongoing campaign to avenge the Israeli assassination of their leaders, Jamal Abu Samhadana, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike at a PRC training camp earlier this month.

Source: Xinhua