GAZA CITY
The military wing of Islamic Jihad group said on Sunday that it launched a locally-made rocket on the northern central Israeli city of Netanya for the first time.
"Our mujahedeen have managed to shell Netanya with a locally-made rocket," Al-Quds Brigades said in a statement.
This is the first time Netanya is attacked with rockets from the Gaza Strip, which has been suffering unrelenting Israeli airstrikes for almost six days now.
The Israeli army, meanwhile, said that its Iron Dome defense system managed to intercept five rockets launched from Gaza on the southern city of Ashdod.
The army added on its Twitter account that one more missile was fired on the occupied Golan Heights from Syria.
The website of the Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post quoted some Israeli sources as saying that the missile had caused no human or material damage.
Around 168 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed and hundreds injured since Israel launched "Operation Protective Edge" in the Gaza Strip on Monday with the stated goal of ending rocket fire from the strip.
Since then, Israeli warplanes have staged hundreds of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip – home to around 1.8 million Palestinians - while ground troops remain amassed on the Strip's borders in advance of a possible ground assault.
Gaza-based resistance factions, for their part, have continued to fire hundreds of rockets into Israel, some of which have reached Tel Aviv, in response to the ongoing offensive.
No Israeli fatalities have been reported thus far.
By Mustafa Haboosh
www.aa.com.tr/en
