Clashes between Israel and Palestinian militant groups continued on Friday, although both sides have voiced willingness to maintain the increasingly shaky truce.
A senior Israeli woman was lightly wounded and several others were shocked in the early morning when Gazan militants fired a barrage of rockets at southern Israel, which also caused damage of properties in and around the southern city of Sderot, local daily Ha'aretz reported.
Shortly after the Gaza's rockets, Israeli army responded to the salvo with an airstrike at what they said was a rocket-launching area in the northern Gaza Strip, wounding two Palestinian gunmen, the report added.
Later in the day, several more rockets hit southern Israel in and near the city of Ashkelon, sending another few people into hospital from treatment of hysteria, according to local rescue services.
The armed wing of Hamas movement, the al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility on Friday for launching around ten homemade Qassam rockets, saying that the attacks were a response to Israel's killing of four Hamas militants on Thursday morning and to the continuation of the Israel-imposed blockade.
Throughout Thursday, Palestinian militants in the Hamas-ruled coastal strip also fired several rockets at southern Israel, causing no injuries or damage.
In response, the Jewish state decided to drop a previous plan and keep the border crossings shut, holding back the delivery of much-needed fuel and truckloads of humanitarian resources into the poverty-stricken area.
Due to the embargo, the main power plant in Gaza has exhausted its fuel and shut down all its generators, and a United Nations relief agency has also suspended delivery of food and other humanitarian supplies.
The latest violence came in the wake of a rocking week, which started on Nov. 4 when Israeli paratroopers killed six Hamas gunmen in a Gaza operation and the Gaza-ruler responded with a barrage of rockets.
With recent flare-ups, which have drastically rattled the Egypt-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Gazan militant groups, concerns are mounting that the shaky truce, which both sides had generally honored for months, might collapse before its first phase of six months ends in mid-December.
Yet on Thursday, Israel delivered a message to Hamas via Egypt that it has no intention of deteriorating the volatile situation along the border, and Hamas responded that it is also interested in maintaining the lull, although both sides also issued harsh warnings against each other.
"We have not yet reached the point of no return, and if Hamas stops the shooting, we can renew the terms of the truce... Israel has made many efforts to get the message across that it is interested in continuing the truce," local news service Ynet quoted an Israeli diplomat as saying after Friday's clashes.
Meanwhile, the official stressed that "Israel is not afraid of the breaking the truce," warning that "If we can't resume the ceasefire and there is an escalation, a military operation will be near."
Source:Xinhua
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