Hamas, Islamic Jihad continue rocket attacks against Israel

The military wings of Islamic Hamas movement which controls the Gaza Strip and its smaller armed wing Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility Monday for firing more rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip. On Monday, the sixth day of a large-scale Israeli aerial offensive here, Ezz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas said it fired 40 projectiles and rockets toward Israeli military posts and communities around Gaza. During this wave of violence, Hamas used Iranian-made missiles for the first time, striking four times the outskirts of Jerusalem and the central city of Tel Aviv. Since Wednesday, Hamas said it has launched 1,100 rockets, including Russian-made Grads. AL-Quds Brigades of the Islamic Jihad said it had fired 400 rockets into Israel in total, one of them was Fajr, the Iranian rocket that is of a longer-range. Meanwhile, Israel Radio quoted an army spokesperson as saying that the rate of Palestinian rocket attacks has declined by 40 percent. The violence flared up when Israel killed Wednesday the leader of Ezz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Hamas movement. The Israeli airstrikes in Gaza have killed 91 Palestinians, including more than 20 children, and wounded as many as 700. On Sunday, Israel killed 11 civilians in a single air strike on a house in Gaza City. The raid was the deadliest since the beginning of the offensive Wednesday.