Saraya al-Quds, armed wing of the Islamic Jihad (Holy War), claimed in a statement on Thursday that it had launched three home-made rockets into Sderot city in southern Israel.

The group shelled Sderot settlement with three Quds-3 missiles, said the statement, adding that their rockets caused damage to a mall and spread a state of panic among the settlers.

The shelling was in response to the Israeli crimes committed in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, said the statement, stressing that the resistance is the only option for the Palestinian people.

In the meanwhile, Israeli army sources said that the army has destroyed three tunnels in southern Gaza Strip on Thursday morning.

One tunnel was dynamited near Sofa commercial crossing between Gaza Strip and Israel, while the other two tunnels were near Gaza airport in Rafah, which is not far from the border fence.

Israeli military sources said that the army would continue operations in the Gaza Strip unless Corporal Gilad Shalit, the captured Israeli soldier, is released.

Shalit was seized on June 25 in a tunnel-born operation carried out by Hamas armed wing and its two allied groups, in which two Israeli soldiers were also killed.

Source: Xinhua