Israel strikes Hamas targets in Gaza in retaliatory attack

The Israel Defence Forces launched airstrikes on Hamas targets in the southern Gaza Strip on late Tuesday night (local time) in response to a rocket attack from the coastal enclave earlier in the evening, the army said.

Fighter jets hit a number of targets including one site "for the production of arms," the IDF said was quoted as saying by The Times of Israel.

"The strikes were carried out in response to the rockets that were fired from the Strip toward Israel. The Hamas terror group is responsible for all violence emanating from the Strip," the army added.

Shortly after the air raids began, sirens sounded in the city of Ashkelon, sending tens of thousands of residents rushing to bomb shelters.

However, there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. The IDF said it was investigating what triggered the alarms. The Ashkelon municipality said the sirens appeared to have been set off by anti-aircraft fire from the Gaza Strip.

Moments before the strikes began, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned terror groups in Gaza they were making a "serious mistake" by firing the two rockets at Israel on Tuesday night.

One of the projectiles was shot down by soldiers operating the Iron Dome missile defence system, the army said. The second appeared to strike an open field in the Sha'ar Hanegev region of southern Israel.

The attack from Gaza came after a "day of rage" protests by thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank in response to a recent US announcement that it no longer believes that Israeli settlements in the West Bank violate international law.

At Israeli checkpoints near Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron, dozens of protesters threw stones at Israeli forces who responded with tear gas.

Tuesday's attacks followed several days of relative calm on the Gaza front following the flare-up earlier this month.