Israeli jets hit Gaza after rocket attack

There were no immediate reports of casualties from the Israeli airstrikes or the rocket fire into Beersheva. A crater had been gouged out of a street next to a badly damaged home that was hit by a military grade Grad rocket,a photographer said.

Residents of the Israeli town said they escaped harm after warning sirens sent them running for the bomb shelters before the projectile struck. Emergency services raised the alert level in southern Israel and braced for further attacks.

Beersheva,known as the capital of the Negev Desert,is home to about 200,000 people and 40 kilometres from the Gaza Strip.

The military said in a statement it had “targeted a terrorist squad in the northern Gaza Strip,in the same location where rockets were fired towards the Israeli city of Beersheva.”

Later,war planes bombed several other sites across the coastal strip,which the military called “hubs of terror.” It gave no further details.

Palestinian sources said there were four Israeli strikes,three in Gaza City and one in the southern town of Khan Yunis. All targeted Hamas training centres.

The tit-for-tat strikes comes after a day of clashes along the Gaza border on Wednesday,in which one Islamic Jihad militant was killed and 10 other people wounded.

The group said several of its members “were wounded as they fired two mortar shells at Israeli tanks operating inside the Gaza Strip.” One of them later died.

The Israeli military said an army was “engaged in a regular patrol along the Gaza border when an explosive device was detonated near the force and a mortar shell fired at it.”