JERUSALEM (AFP) – Two rockets fired from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip slammed into open fields in southern Israel overnight, without causing any casualties or damage, the Israeli military said on Saturday.
“The two Qassam-type devices were fired from the northern Gaza Strip and landed in the western Negev,” a military spokeswoman said, referring to the crude, homemade rockets used by Palestinian armed groups.
Gaza militants have fired more than 160 rockets and mortar rounds on Israel since the end of a massive Israeli offensive at the turn of the year aimed at halting the projectiles, shaking the ceasefires that ended the fighting.
Israel has in turn launched several air strikes at suspected militants, weapons caches, and smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border.
On Thursday Hamas said the “resistance movements” had nothing to do with the recent rocket fire and vowed to combat such activities, saying they came at a “bad time.”
Egypt has been struggling since the war ended in January to mediate a more lasting ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and a prisoner exchange to return an Israeli soldier seized by Gaza militants in June 2006.
The Islamist movement has ruled Gaza since June 2007, when it violently drove out forces loyal to the Western-backed president Mahmud Abbas.
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