Israel launches air raid on Gaza after rocket launches

The missile attacks came after US President Joe Biden left Israel to travel to Saudi Arabia.

Israel struck Gaza with multiple missiles after rockets were launched from the territory, as US President Joe Biden continued a tour of the region including Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The Israeli military said early on Saturday, it hit a rocket-manufacturing site in central Gaza run by Hamas, which governs the blockaded strip.

Al Jazeera’s Youmna El Sayed, who is in Gaza, said people were woken up by the sound of the explosions and that more than a dozen missiles had targeted two separate locations in the territory.

She added that while no one had been reported injured, “there was a lot of material damage. We could see a lot of fires at the site and the land surrounding it.”

Most of the area around the site was agricultural, she said.

Earlier, sirens sounded in southern Israel on two occasions to warn residents of incoming rockets.

One was intercepted and three landed in open spaces, the military said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the launches.

Israel fired missiles into Gaza last month – again after rocket launches from the besieged territory – after a period of relative calm. It said it targets Hamas military sites, but Palestinian authorities said the missiles fell on agricultural land.

In May 2021 Israel launched an 11-day assault on Gaza that killed 253 Palestinians.

US-brokered peace talks aiming to establish a Palestinian state in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza collapsed in 2014 and there is no sign of their revival.

On Friday, during a visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank, US President Joe Biden promised not to give up peace efforts, but offered no new proposals to restart the process.