GAZA CITY
The Ezzeddin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Gaza-based Palestinian faction Hamas, said late on Saturday that it fired 14 rockets on the Israeli capital Tel Aviv, the southern city of Ashkelon and Nahal Oz in southern Israel.
"Our mujahedeen have managed to shell Nahal Oz in southern Israel with seven rockets," the brigades said in a statement.
It said it also fired two rockets on the Israeli capital Tel Aviv and five rockets on the southern city of Ashkelon.
Israel's police and army, meanwhile, said rocket warning sirens were sounded in central Israel late on Saturday.
"Hamas violated the U.N.-proposed humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza once more," Ofir Gendelman, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wrote on his twitter account in Arabic.
The Gaza-based Palestinian resistance movement Hamas said late on Saturday that it did not approve an extension of Gaza's 12-hour humanitarian ceasefire, which came to an end a short time ago in the Palestinian enclave.
"There is no agreement on extending the ceasefire in Gaza by four hours," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement.
Gaza's 12-hour U.N.-proposed humanitarian lull came to an end at 17:00 GMT, but the Israeli government said it was expanding this calm by four more hours so that it can come to an end at midnight.
The humanitarian lull came hard on the heels of intensive Israeli shelling of homes and sites in the Gaza Strip, shelling that started on July 7.
At least 1046 Palestinians have been killed – mostly civilians – and more than 5900 others injured in Israel's offensive, now in its third week.
Gaza-based resistance factions, meanwhile, fired rocket at Israeli cities in response to relentless Israeli bombardments.
Israel's military operation, dubbed operation "Protective Edge," is the self-proclaimed Jewish state's third major offensive against the densely-populate Gaza Strip – which is home to some 1.8 million Palestinians – within the last six years.
By Mustafa Haboosh
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