Al-Quds Brigades Respond to Israel’s Air Raids with Missile Attack

The Quds Brigades of the Islamic Jihad Movement in a statement announced on Sunday that it has fired over 70 rockets and missiles at Zionist targets in response to Israel’s numerous air raids and ground assaults on defenseless Palestinians.

Tens of missiles and 120-mm mortars have been fired at Israel’s Karam Abu-Salem military base and Sedriot settlement, the Quds Brigades said on Sunday.

Meantime, the Israel radio announced that four Zionists were injured in missile attacks on Sedriot settlement on Sunday morning.

The attacks by the Quds Brigades are in response to Israel’s frequent air raids on the defenseless Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as the Brigades had earlier vowed that it would give a crushing response to Israeli attacks.

On Saturday, Israeli tank shells killed at least five Palestinians and wounded 30 in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medics and local witnesses said.

The casualty toll in Saturday’s violence was one of the highest in a single incident in Gaza in recent months. At least five of the injured, some of them children, are in critical condition, medical sources said.

Residents said a crowded mourning tent in the Shijaia neighborhood near Gaza City was full of people paying respects to a bereaved family man when a shell struck.

Ambulances, private vehicles and motorbikes rushed the wounded to hospital, eyewitnesses said. Among those killed was an 18-year-old man.

The Gaza Strip, a coastal territory crowded with more than 1.5 million people, many of them refugees, has been under siege by Israel since 2007.

The Israeli military frequently carries out air strikes and other attacks on the Gaza Strip, claiming the actions are being conducted for defensive purposes. However, disproportionate force is always used, in violation of international law, and civilians are often killed or injured.

Hamas officials, including its former Political Bureau Chief Khalid Mashaal have on many occasions stressed that resistance of Palestinian groups would continue until the ultimate removal of the Gaza siege and re-opening of crossings into the territory.