Five Palestinian militant groups claimed responsibility on Wednesday for carrying out a series of armed attacks against Israeli targets from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Saraya al-Qudes, an armed wing of the Islamic Jihad (Holy War), said in a leaflet that it fired two "Qudes-2 homemade rockets" from the northern Gaza Strip at the coastal Israeli city of Ashkelon.

The group claimed that the two rockets hit a power plant in Ashkelon, adding that the attack was a response to Qana massacres in which over 50 Lebanese civilians were killed and the continuous attacks against Lebanon.

However, the report was denied by an Israeli army spokesman who told Israel Radio that the report was untrue.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian leftist Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) said in another leaflet that its militants clashed with an Israeli army force backed by tanks and armored vehicles, which incurred into the village of Qabatia near Jenin in the West Bank.

"Our militants damaged four armored vehicles and forces the Zionist intruders to pullback after they destroyed the home of one of our top leaders in the area," said the group.

In the Gaza Strip, three militant groups, one from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and the other two belong to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement claimed responsibility for launching mortar shells and rockets at Israel.

The three groups claimed in a joint leaflet sent to reporters that they fired four homemade mortars at the Krem Shalom settlement outside the southeastern Gaza Strip.

"This is the natural response to the daily crimes carried out against our people and our brothers, the Lebanese people," they said.

Israel continued an over-one-month-old large-scale air and ground operation in the Palestinian territory of Gaza in a bid to bring home a kidnapped soldier and halt Palestinian rocket fire.

On another front, Israel kept up a massive offensive against Lebanon's Shiite group Hezbollah, which was launched on July 12 following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah guerillas.

Source: Xinhua