Palestinian resistance groups carried out a fresh retaliatory round targeting the occupied territories as the Zionist occupation regime continues with a deadly onslaught against civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip despite international calls for a halt to the week-long conflict.
‘Israeli’ media said the rockets were launched in the early hours of Wednesday at the occupied cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beersheba, sending settlers scrambling for shelter.
Zionist officials, meanwhile, said two people were killed after the resistance’s rockets reached Eshkol region in southern ‘Israeli’-occupied territories.
Reports also said huge explosions and plumes of smoke had been sighted near Tel Aviv and made rocket warning sirens to go off.
‘Israeli’ media also said a missile fired by Palestinian resistance groups had struck the main road connecting Ashdod and Tel Aviv, causing a huge blaze in the area.
Palestine’s official Wafa news agency said the reprisals came after a series of violent ‘Israeli’ airstrikes targeted the southern besieged Gaza Strip.
The news agency said Zionist warplanes had targeted, with at least 40 missiles, nearly 70 locations in the cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza, leaving at least seven people injured who were transferred to hospitals for medical treatment.
On Tuesday evening, Hamas resistance movement’s armed wing, Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, announced that it had targeted six ‘Israeli’ military air bases in response to the raids on the coastal enclave.
The group said its missiles had struck the bases of Hatzor, Hatzerim, Nevatim, Tel Nof, Palmachim and Ramon.
The blockaded Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank have been simmering with rage in the past weeks over the Zionist regime’s scheme to forcefully and illegally expel dozens of Palestinians from their homes in the volatile Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of the Old City in occupied East al-Quds as part of a long-running scheme to Judaize Palestinian lands.
The anger further intensified earlier this month with ‘Israeli’ attacks on Palestinian worshipers in the al-Aqsa Mosque complex during the fasting days of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.
Since last Monday, the Tel Aviv regime has been launching large-scale airstrikes across Gaza, razing homes and civilian infrastructure to the ground.
Meanwhile, Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups have retaliated by firing thousands of rockets toward the occupied Palestinian territories, with many of the projectiles having flown into the Zionist entity’s depths.
The Tel Aviv regime has confessed that more than 3,450 rockets have so far been launched from Gaza, with some being intercepted by the so-called Iron Dome missile system.
Gaza medical officials say 217 Palestinians have been martyred, including 63 children, and more than 1,400 wounded since the ‘Israeli’ assault began on May 10. Zionist authorities put the number of deaths in the occupied territories at 12.
Despite international calls for an immediate halt of all hostilities, Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged that the onslaught will continue.