Israeli F-16 warplanes on Wednesday afternoon struck the borderline zone between southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah and Egypt with air-to-ground rockets, witnesses and security sources said.

Security sources of the Islamic Hamas movement, which rules Gaza, said Israeli warplanes hovered over the area and carried outtwo separate airstrikes, hitting the area where there are hundreds of underground tunnels used for smuggling goods from Egypt into Gaza.

Witnesses said that they heard the buzz of the Israeli warplanes and then they suddenly heard two successive explosions in the area of the borders between Rafah town and Egypt.

Gaza emergency chief Mo'aweya Hassanein told reporters that four Palestinians were wounded in the two successive Israeli airstrikes, adding they were moderately injured.

The Israeli airstrike on Rafah borderline area and the destruction of underground tunnels used for smuggling came shortly after Hamas militants attacked an Israeli army force by five mortar shells east of Gaza Strip.

Israeli radio reported that militants fired a homemade rocket from northern Gaza Strip which landed near the southern costal town of Ashkelon. No damages or injuries were reported.

The mutual violence between Israel and Gaza militants came hours after a senior Hamas source said that Hamas and the Gaza militant groups had secretly agreed to halt rockets attacks on Israel to avoid a possible Israeli large-scale offensive.

On December 27 of 2008, the Israeli army carried out a large-scale 22-day military offensive on Gaza Strip, killing more than 1,400 Palestinians and destroying thousands of houses and government constructions.