Israel accuses Syria, Iran of ordering Gaza rocket fire
The Israeli army yesterday accused the Syrian government and Iran of ordering Palestinian militants in Gaza to fire dozens of rockets into southern Israel, and threatened to retaliate wherever it chose.
The barrage of rockets, which began late Friday and continued into yesterday morning, triggered extensive retaliatory strikes by Israeli aircraft against Gaza that risked escalating into a wider conflict.
Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian militant group that launched the rockets, yesterday said it had agreed to an Egyptian-brokered truce with Israel to cease hostilities.
The new flare-up came hours after six Palestinians died in renewed clashes on the Gaza-Israel border even as the territory's Islamist rulers Hamas said Egypt was seeking to negotiate a return to calm.
"The rockets that were launched against Israel... we know that the orders, incentives were given from Damascus with the clear involvement of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force," Israeli army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus told journalists, referring to the Guards' foreign operations unit.
At least 39 rockets have been fired at southern Israel by the Islamic Jihad group since late Friday, with 17 of them intercepted by air defences and the rest hitting open ground, the army said.
Israeli aircraft carried out extensive retaliatory strikes, targeting approximately 90 sites belonging to the territory's Islamist rulers Hamas.
Conricus said that Israel held Hamas responsible for the fire, even though it was carried out by Islamic Jihad at the behest of Syria and its ally Iran.
Conricus said Israel would also retaliate against the Syrian government and Iran's Quds Force, and would choose where.
There were no reports of deaths in Gaza as a result of the Israeli air strikes. In Gaza City, a four-storey building was completely destroyed, AFP correspondents reported. The Israeli army said it was a major headquarters of Hamas.
Israel has fought three wars since 2008 with Hamas and its allies, including Islamic Jihad, and Egypt and the United Nations have been leading diplomatic efforts to avert a fourth.
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