|
Gaza: The Islamic Jihad group said it fired rockets into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
The attack, which violates a ceasefire deal which went into effect on Thursday, was a response to an Israeli attack that killed one of its commanders in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus.
Israeli officials said three rockets were fired into Sderot, and a house was struck, but no one was injured.
The rockets struck hours after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert thanked Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in talks in Egypt for brokering the ceasefire
"This is a blatant violation of the calm, and we will weigh options," an aide quoted Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as saying after the rockets struck.
Islamic Jihad said the attack was the "first response" to Israel's killing overnight of a local commander of the militant group and another Palestinian, who was affiliated with Hamas, in the West Bank city of Nablus.
Hamas said Israel brought the rocket fire on itself by carrying out the West Bank raid.
"Hamas will follow up and address this matter in talks with the factions in the way that will maintain the calm," an official said.
An Egyptian-brokered truce went into effect on Thursday, aiming to end fighting that has killed seven Israelis and more than 400 Palestinians since Hamas took over Gaza last year.
The truce calls on Israel to ease a punishing blockade of the Gaza Strip, and obliges Hamas to end attacks into Israel.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Israeli military claimed a mortar shell was fired by Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, stressing that this violated the peace deal.
Olmert was quoted on Tuesday in the London-based Al Sharq Al Awsat daily as saying that if the smuggling of weapons into Gaza did not end, then Israel would consider the cease-fire agreement violated, and "then we will be compelled to military action."
|
