Israel today said Palestinian militant group Hamas test-fired four rockets into the Mediterranean Sea, in an apparent bid to show off their might amid heightened tensions following the deadly synagouge attack.
The Israeli military said four rockets were fired in the past 24 hours -- two of the rockets were launched yesterday afternoon, one fired in the night, and the fourth was launched this morning.
Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), which had so far avoided officially addressing the rocket trials, tweeted the information on its Twitter handle today.
Some Palestinian sources said at least 14 rockets have been launched in recent weeks, with the tests going on for nearly two months.
Tensions have spiked in the region in recent weeks, over a disputed holy site in Jerusalem sacred to both Muslims and Jews.
Eleven people have been killed in separate incidents by Palestinian attackers. The most brutal attack happened on Tuesday when two Palestinian cousins, wielding knife and meat cleavers, attacked a synagogue killing four rabbis and a policeman.
Following the attack, Israel resumed the destruction of homes of Palestinian attackers, first employing the controversial punitive action against the person's property involved in an October 22 attack in annexed east Jerusalem.
The practice was earlier employed in the West Bank but had been halted in 2005 after the army said they had not deterred other attackers.
Israel's security establishment believes Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, has renewed its rocket manufacturing operations after its stockpile of arsenals was heavily hit during the recent 50-day war fought between the two sides.
Israel and Gaza militants led by Hamas fought over the summer during which 2,200 Palestinians and 70 Israelis died.
The bloodiest war between the two sides broke out after Hamas fired dozens of rockets at Israel after Israel rounded up its activists in the West Bank following the murder of three Israeli teens there.
Hamas fired thousands of rockets but most of those fired on residential areas were neutralised by Israel's locally developed Iron Dome anti-missile defence system.
An Egypt-mediated ceasefire has so far held itself with Hamas enforcing it stringently by even taking action against Islamic Jihad cells which twice fired short-range rockets on Israel after the end of the operation.
Some analysts believe Cairo's crackdown on cross-border tunnels at the Egyptian border has forced Hamas to develop local infrastructure for the production of rockets for any future confrontation with Israel.
