Israel strikes Gaza after alleged militant rocket attack

Israeli aircraft have struck a number of sites in Gaza. It comes after Palestinian militants allegedly fired a rocket, which landed near the Israeli port city of Ashdod. The Israeli military says it struck four “terror infrastructures” in Gaza after the rocket attack. Speaking from Israel, Marcel Hadar, a local regional council spokeswoman, described an “explosion.” “Around nine o’clock, there was a sound of an explosion, no sirens were heard, but we understand that apparently a rocket, a missile, was launched from the Gaza Strip towards our area,” she explained. There was no immediate claim of responsibility in Gaza for the rocket launching – the longest range strike since a truce that ended the 50-day war last year. Israeli media speculated that infighting among Islamic Jihad militants in the Gaza Strip may have precipitated the rocket firing without the permission of Gaza’s Islamist Hamas rulers. Rival militant factions in Gaza are angry that months after the end of the war, no progress has been made to improve the isolated enclave’s plight and pledges for funding to reconstruct buildings devastated during the war have not been honoured.