Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) threatened Israel on Wednesday with "violent and tough response" if the Jewish state aimed to destroy the Hamas-led Palestinian government.

"We will not allow any bid to topple this government," said a statement issued by Hamas.

The hardline faction also threatened to launch strike inside Israel if the Israeli forces pressed on with ground and air operation in the Gaza Strip to secure the release of an abducted soldier.

"If bloodshed continues in Gaza, the streets and communities of the Zionist entity (Israel) won't be saved from bloodshed," the statement said.

Hamas made the threat after Israeli airstrike on the Hamas-led Ministry of Interior in Gaza City early Wednesday badly damaged the building.

The air raids came shortly after Hamas militants fired a Qassam rocket which landed at the center of the southern Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon for the first time on Tuesday evening, hitting the empty parking lot of a high school, causing light damage but no injuries.

Israel arrested dozens of senior members of Hamas, including eight ministers of the Hamas-led government and 24 lawmakers, in the West Bank as the Summer Rain operation began on June 28 in Gaza in response to a deadly Palestinian militants attack on an Israeli army post near Gaza border which left two soldiers dead and a third one kidnapped.

Source: Xinhua