At least 10 Palestinians were wounded in Israeli airstrikes on various targets in the Gaza Strip early Sunday, witnesses and medical sources said.

The first raid took place shortly after midnight, targeting a metal workshop in northeast Gaza city where five people were injured, according to the medical sources.

The witnesses said the five were passing by accident near the targeted place.

Minutes later, the Israeli aircrafts fired missiles at another workshop near al-Maghazi refugee camp in Central Gaza Strip.

There have been no injuries in the second strike. Israel said that attacks had targeted weapon factories and workshops that produced home-made rockets.

The Israeli air force resumed its attacks at dawn on tunnels beneath Gaza's southern border with Egypt, wounding five more Palestinian smuggling workers, residents in Rafah town said.

Officials at Abu Youssef al-Najjar hospital in Rafah said the workers have sustained slight to moderate injuries.

Islamic Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, has evacuated its government's security facilities for fears of Israeli bombing.

The airstrikes seemed to be in response to a Palestinian rocket attack on southern Israel late Saturday. No Palestinian group had claimed responsibility for firing the rocket which landed in an open area in Western Negev.

The rocket was fired shortly after Hamas Interior Minister, Fathi Hammad, said that Hamas had agreed with the Palestinian factions to halt rocket attacks on Israel for the time being to avoid a possible Israeli military reaction in Gaza.

Last winter, Israel conducted a fierce offensive in Gaza, killing some 1,387 Palestinians and destroying thousands of houses and public facilities. Operation Cast Lead was meant to reduce rocket-fire on Israeli communities near Gaza.

Following Israel's December 27 to Jan 18 offensive, more than 200 rockets and projectiles, including mortars, had been fired from the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli authorities.

(Xinhua News Agency November 22, 2009)