The operation in response to a rocket launch yesterday on the port city of Ashdod. So far, no official news of deaths or injuries. Four training camps targeted. International activists accuse Hamas (after Israel) of war crimes.

Jerusalem (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Israeli aircraft launched four separate dawn air strikes on targets belonging to Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. Local sources said that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) operation is in response to the rocket launch - yesterday - from Gaza into Jewish territory. This is the third air raid since the end of the war in 2014.

Israeli Ministry of Defense spokesman, Peter Lerner, wrote on his twitter profile that "Following yesterday’s rocket attack against Israel, IDF aircraft attacked 4 terrorist locations in southern Gaza.”

Witnesses said the air strikes targeted training camps belonging to the jihadist movement in Palestinian Rafah, Khan Yunis and Gaza City. At the moment there are no confirmed news of casualties or injuries.

Yesterday a missile fired from Gaza fell - without causing damage - near the port city of Ashdod. Israeli officials said the attack was the work of the fundamentalist group Hamas, which has yet to claim responsibility for the operation.

However, if confirmed is the groups farthest reaching rocket attack since the entry into force, in late August, of the truce that ended the war in the Gaza Strip last summer.

Called "Operation Margin Protecter”, the campaign launched by Israel in the Gaza Strip to stop the rocket attacks on its territory began on July 8, 2014 and ended August 26, 2014. The violence caused 2,200 casualties among the Palestinians (including 1,500 civilians) and 73 deaths on the Israeli side, 67 of them among the soldiers. At least 11 thousand people were wounded, most of them on the Palestinian front, 70% of which were civilians. Over 500 children died in the conflict.

Meanwhile,  Amnesty International has released a report accusing Hamas of war crimes against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. The violence may have taken place during the last conflict with Israel. "Hamas has waged a brutal campaign - write investigators - of kidnappings, torture and assassinations against Palestinians accused of 'collaborating' with Israel and others during the Israeli military offensive in Gaza."

In March AI had expounded the same accusations of war crimes against Israel.

• ISRAEL
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• PALESTINE
• hamas
• air
• raids
• rocket
• launch
• war
• crimes