Israel launches airstrikes in Gaza in response to rocket attack

Palestinian security personnel look at a crater on the ground following an Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip near the town, of Rafah on May 27, 2015. The Israeli air force carried out four airstrikes on militant targets in the Gaza Strip on May 27, 2015 in response to a rocket from the Gaza Strip. Said Khatib/AFP PhotoShow less

GAZA CITY // The Israeli air force carried out four strikes on militant targets in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, hours after Palestinian militants fired a rocket across the border.

The Israeli military said it struck “four terror infrastructures in the southern Gaza Strip” in response. There were no reports of any casualties or damage.

Witnesses said planes targeted training camps belonging to militant group Islamic Jihad in Rafah, Khan Younis and Gaza City.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his forces would “do whatever is needed to maintain calm” along the border with Gaza.

Tuesday’s rocket from the Palestinian enclave landed near Ashdod some 20 kilometres north of the Gaza border. It was the longest-range militant rocket strike since a truce that ended the 50-day war last year. No one claimed responsibility for the rocket attack.

Defence minister Moshe Yaalon said Tuesday’s rocket attack had been carried out by militant group Islamic Jihad.

“If we don’t have calm in Israel, the Gaza Strip will pay a heavy price,” he said.

“I do not advise anyone to put this to the test. Israel will not sit back after its citizens were targeted by Islamic Jihad,” he added.

The Arab League condemned the Israeli airstrikes.

“The extremist Israeli government is trying to find pretexts to divert the international community’s attention from resuming [peace] negotiations,” Arab League deputy head Ahmed bin Heli said from Cairo.

The talks fell apart in April 2014, and prospects for their renewal seem bleak with a lack of trust between the sides exacerbated by the formation of Mr Netanyahu’s new hardline coalition.

Israeli media speculated that infighting among Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza Strip may have precipitated the rocket firing without the permission of Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

Rival militant factions in Gaza are angry that months after the end of the war, no progress has been made to improve Gaza’s plight and pledges for funding to reconstruct buildings devastated during the war have not been honoured.

Reconciliation efforts between Hamas and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority led by president Mahmoud Abbas have faltered, adding to hardships and hampering foreign aid donations and the import of building materials.

Israel maintains a partial blockade on the territory and Egypt largely keeps the Rafah border crossing closed. Hamas has imposed a “solidarity tax” and salaries for workers not aligned with the Palestinian Authority are not being paid in full.

Tuesday’s rocket was the third fired from Gaza since the ceasefire ending the 50-day conflict in summer 2014, which killed about 2,200 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and 73 on the Israeli side, most of them soldiers.

Two mortar rounds were also fired at Israel since September, according to the Shin Bet internal security agency.

Wednesday’s airstrikes were the third time Israel targeted Gaza since the end of the 2014 war.

* Agence France-Presse and Reuters