Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza

OCCUPIED AL-QUDS: The Israeli army early on Friday said it had carried out airstrikes on military targets in the Gaza Strip after rockets fired from the Palestinian enclave hit southern Israel.

Fighter jets and attack helicopters struck a "weapons manufacturing site, a weapon smuggling tunnel and a military post" operated by Hamas, the armed Islamist ruling party in Gaza, the Israeli Defence Force said in a statement.

"We will not tolerate any threat to Israeli civilians," it added. Israelis in the southern city of Sderot took cover late on Thursday after a rocket was fired from Gaza. The rocket landed in an open area and caused no injuries or damage, according to a spokesman with the Shaar Hanegev local council.