Five houses owned by Palestinian militants were destroyed on Wednesday night when Israeli army helicopter gunships and F16 warplanes launched airstrikes in Gaza, media reports said Thursday.

Witnesses were quoted as saying the first Israeli airstrike was carried out when an Israeli Apache helicopter gunship fired one rocket at a house belong to a member of the Popular Resistance Committees in the Beach Refugee camp in western Gaza City.

The Israeli army informed by telephone the house owner to leave it just half an hour before the house was targeted, added the witnesses.

Another airstrike was carried out when two air-to-ground rockets were fired at a house of a senior Islamic Hamas militant, said Palestinian security sources.

The sources said that the Israeli army informed the family of the Hamas militant to leave their house shortly before it was destroyed, adding that owners of two more houses in northern Gaza Strip were informed to evacuate.

Three more houses were also destroyed, two in northern Gaza Strip and one is in Rafah town in southern Gaza Strip, added the sources.

All the houses targeted in the airstrikes were completely destroyed, but no injury has been reported.

The Israeli airstrikes came after Palestinian militants launched several homemade rockets earlier on Wednesday from northern Gaza Strip at southern Israeli town of Sderot, which killed an Israeli woman and wounded several others.

In response to the Palestinian attacks, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz on Wednesday vowed to revenge, saying that the militants behind the attack would "pay a heavy price."

Source: Xinhua