Gaza militants fire rocket barrage at southern Israel Published duration 12 March 2014

image copyright AP image caption A trail of smoke from rockets fired from Gaza towards Israel was seen above Gaza City

Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have fired more than 30 rockets at southern Israel, Israeli officials say.

An Israeli military spokesman said eight hit urban civilian areas and that a number of others were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defence system.

It was the heaviest barrage since the November 2012 conflict in Gaza ended. Islamic Jihad said it fired the rockets.

Israeli warplanes responded by targeting Islamic Jihad positions.

The group said its attacks were in retaliation for Tuesday's killing of three of its militants in an earlier Israeli air strike.

"Our Mujahideen responded to the Zionist aggression by firing tens of rockets," they said in a statement.

Speaking to the BBC, the group's spokesman added "The rocket fired today came in response to the occupation aggression against us and does not mean the collapse of the ceasefire agreement [with Israel]."

Another Gaza militant group, the Popular Resistance Committees, said they also fired several rockets.

Witnesses, including a photographer for the AFP news agency said that there were nine Israeli retaliatory strikes throughout the coastal strip on facilities operated by Islamic Jihad's military wing, the al-Quds Brigades, and on targets belonging to Hamas's military wing.

'Code red'

Late on Wednesday, "code red" sirens sounded across southern Israel after militants fired tens of rockets from northern Gaza in a co-ordinated attack, Israeli military spokesman Lt Col Peter Lerner said.

One rocket exploded near a petrol station and another near a public library, a police spokesman said.

Israeli troops initially responded by targeting "two terrorist locations" with artillery rounds, Col Lerner said.

Residents in the Beit Hanoun area of Gaza said they saw an Israeli strike hit a rocket launcher squad.

A statement by the al-Quds Brigades said the barrage was its "initial response" to the "crimes of the Zionist enemy in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip", the latest of which was the "assassination" of three of its members on Tuesday.

The Israeli military said it had targeted the militants after they fired mortars at its troops. The al-Quds Brigades said the Israeli soldiers had crossed into the Gaza Strip.

After Wednesday's rocket barrage, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "We won't flinch. We will continue to hurt those who try to hurt us."

image copyright AFP image caption An Israeli military spokesman said eight rockets had hit urban civilian areas, including Sderot

He said that the number of rockets this year has been the lowest in the last decade.

Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad and other groups have sporadically fired rockets and mortars at Israel since the 2012 conflict ended, while the Hamas movement that governs Gaza has refrained from doing so.

However, an Israeli military statement said it held Hamas "responsible for all attacks emanating" from the coastal territory.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, on a visit to Israel, condemned the rocket attack.

"They are a reminder once again of the importance of maintaining and securing Israel's future and the security threats that you face, and you have Britain's support in facing those security threats," he said.

Israel pulled its troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip, now run by Hamas, in 2005. But it maintains a naval and air blockade and restricts the overland movement of people and goods across their shared border.