Gaza rocket hits south Israel: Israel police

A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip has hit southern Israel, Israeli police said, in the first such move since the Tel Aviv regime’s war on Gaza last November.

The rocket landed near Ashkelon on Tuesday and caused some damage to a road near the city, police officials said, but there were no initial reports over possible injuries.

It was the first such strike since November 2012, when Israel launched a deadly offensive on the besieged Gaza Strip, which killed more than 160 Palestinians and injured some 1,200 others.

The strike came after days of clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters in the occupied West Bank that erupted over the death of Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat, who died in Israel’s Magiddo jail on Saturday because of extreme torture.

Israeli prison officials claimed that Jaradat had died of a cardiac attack.

However, the Palestinian Authority’s Minister for Prisoners’ Affairs Issa Qaraqea said the prisoner’s autopsy showed fractures in his body and skull due to torture, while his heart was in good condition.

Palestinians have been holding regular protests demanding the release of prisoners, but tensions have escalated after Jaradat’s death.

Following Jaradat’s death, about 3,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails launched a one-day hunger strike on Sunday to voice their outrage at the incident.

More than 4,500 Palestinian prisoners are held in Israeli prisons, many of them without charge or trial.