Israel carried out a series of air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, Palestinian officials and witnesses said, after militants from the Hamas-ruled territory fired rockets into southern Israel. No one was reported killed in any of the strikes that targeted a Hamas training camp, where two gunmen were wounded, as well as smuggling tunnels along Gaza's border with Egypt and other, unpopulated areas, Hamas officials and witnesses said.
An Israeli military spokesman said at least 14 rockets had been launched at Israel from the Gaza Strip in the past two days. A rocket that later struck an Israeli farming community on the Mediterranean coast lightly wounded one person who was taken to hospital, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Media reports said the rocket landed near a kindergarten. A spokesman for the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militant group, an offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the latest rocket attack and said it was fired in retaliation for Israel's air strikes.
Hamas leaders have tried to curb rocket fire at Israel from Gaza, but smaller groups continue to carry out such attacks. Israel's military said more than 200 cross-border missiles, rockets and mortars have been fired from Gaza this year. An air strike in Gaza on Saturday killed five militants from a rocket-launching squad.