Palestinian militants launch rockets at Israel

Palestinian militants announced launching homemade rockets into southern Israel on Tuesday to revenge the deadly Israeli air raid on the southern Lebanese village of Qana.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Movement, said its militants fired three rockets into the southern Israeli border town of Sderot.

The Islamic Jihad (Holy War) also claimed responsibility for launching an unspecified number of rockets at an Israeli army post in the eastern Gaza Strip.

In addition, Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, which is an armed wing of the Palestinian ruling Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), announced that its militants fired three rockets at Sderot, Israel 's Nahel Oz military base and an army post in the southeast Gaza Strip respectively.

The militant groups said that the rocket salvos were aimed to revenge the Monday Israeli airstrike on Qana, where over 50 Lebanese civilians, most of them children, were killed.

Israeli sources said that at least one rocket landed in Sderot, causing damage but no casualties.

Meanwhile, Palestinian witnesses said that Israeli tanks deployed on the eastern Gaza border shelled the northern Gaza Strip early on Tuesday.

The shells landed in open areas near residential complexes in the northern Gaza towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, said the witnesses.

There was no report of casualties.

In addition, an Israeli drone fired at least one missile at what Israel said was a tunnel being dug by Palestinian militants to carry out attacks against Israel in the eastern part of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

Israel has pressed ahead a massive air and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip in a bid to free an Israeli soldier abducted Palestinian militants on June 25 and halt Palestinian rocket fire.

Over 160 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds of others wounded in the over-one-month-old violence.

Source: Xinhua