Israeli air strikes hit Gaza Strip

Israel launched air strikes on the Gaza Strip early on Thursday, which Palestinian fighters reacted to by firing rockets in the latest bout of unrest in the region.

The overnight attacks — which Israel's army confirmed in a statement at 02:41 am (0041 GMT) — come hours after the army intercepted a rocket fired from the Palestinian territory.

Emergency services reported no immediate casualties on either side.

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According to local security sources and witnesses, the first round of strikes — at least seven — hit a training centre of the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades. The centre is in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.

Another round of air strikes hit the Al Qassam Brigades' training centre southwest of Gaza City.

The strikes came "in response to the rocket launch from the Gaza Strip into Israel earlier" on Wednesday.

A statement by the Israeli army said fighter jets had "struck a production site for raw chemical material production, preservation and storage along with a weapon manufacturing site" belonging to Hamas.

The strikes came "in response to the rocket launch from the Gaza Strip into Israel earlier" on Wednesday.

Last week, Israeli forces killed 10 people from the Jenin refugee camp in their deadliest raid in the West Bank in nearly two decades.

The unrest comes after cross-border rocket fire from the Gaza Strip last week in retaliation to a deadly Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank, and a shooting attack outside a synagogue in annexed east Jerusalem on Friday that killed seven civilians.

That attack on the Jewish Sabbath was the deadliest targeting Israeli civilians in more than a decade and was celebrated by many Palestinians in Gaza and across the West Bank, where bloodshed is also rising.

Agence France-Presse