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1st LD Writethru: UN chief slams rocket attacks on Israel by extremist militants from Gaza

Xinhua, September 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday condemned "recent rocket attacks by extremist Palestinian militants on Israel from Gaza."

"Such indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas risk a dangerous escalation and must stop," the secretary-general said in a statement. "The people of southern Israel and Gaza have suffered enough from such violence."

At least one rocket launched from the Gaza Strip enclave on Friday evening landed in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, Israeli military said. No injuries were reported, but light damage was caused to a vehicle.

In late August, a rocket exploded on Israeli territory, hitting the Eshkol regional council. There were no injuries and damages then, and the Israeli Air Force struck targets in Gaza in response to the rocket fire.

On Aug. 18, Israel carried out a series of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip in response to renewed rocket fire from Palestinian militants -- a burst of violence that broke a brief ceasefire and endangered negotiations in Egypt aimed at ending the month-long conflict, reports said.

In late May, Israeli warplanes launched missile strikes on military training facilities in the Gaza Strip in response to earlier firing of four rockets into Israel, reports said.

The airstrikes on the training facilities, which belong to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, were an Israeli act of retaliation for earlier rockets attacks carried out overnight from northern Gaza Strip into Israel.

However, leaders of the Islamic Hamas movement and the Islamic Jihad (Holy War) in the Gaza Strip denied on May 26 that their militants had fired any rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

The Gaza blockade, imposed by Israel after Hamas seized control there, has greatly limited residents' movement in and out of the territory, restricted the flow of goods into Gaza and blocked virtually all exports.

Israel said the blockade is needed to prevent arms smuggling, but critics said the measures have amounted to collective punishment. Endit