Loading ...Israel has begun striking Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip in response to a rocket attack that injured a British-Israeli family.
The military confirmed it had started a bombardment of the territory after an overnight blast in the Mishmeret farming community, north of the city of Kfar Saba, which left seven people wounded.
An Israeli government source confirmed to Sky News that six members of the British-Israeli family were among those injured, including an infant, two children and a 60-year-old woman, and a house was completely destroyed.
It was the furthest a rocket fired from Gaza has travelled into Israel since a conflict in 2014, and one of the paramedics first on the scene said it was “a miracle that nobody got killed”.
An unnamed Hamas official has denied it was behind the launch of the rocket, which came down at 5.25am local time on Monday, and claimed it could have been fired due to “bad weather”.
Israeli military spokesman Mika Lifshitz said that it was a self-manufactured rocket with a range of about 75 miles – well beyond the usual capabilities of those fired by Hamas.
The attack came just two weeks after Israel targeted Gaza in response to rockets being fired toward Tel Aviv, but tensions subsided after Hamas insisted it was an accident.
