Israel strikes Gaza Strip after alleged rocket fire

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — Israel hit the besieged Gaza Strip before dawn on Saturday in what it claimed was a retaliatory strike for rocket fire from the Palestinian territory controlled by the Islamist movement Hamas.

The exchange of fire came hours after US President Joe Biden visited Israel and the occupied West Bank. 

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem denounced the strikes, which the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said caused no injuries.

WAFA said Israeli missiles were fired at two locations, one "near a tourist resort" where nearby houses were severely damaged.

Balls of fire lit up the night sky over Gaza City after the strikes, which at one location left a hole in the earth beneath dislodged paving stones in front of a low-rise building.

A man later swept up shattered glass in front of what appeared to be an office.

During the night there had been two separate launches, each of two rockets, towards Israeli territory, the military said.

Warning sirens alerting residents to the rocket fire had sounded during the night in the city of Ashkelon and elsewhere in Israel's south.

Israel's military said one of the rockets had been intercepted while the other three fell on empty land.

Impoverished Gaza, home to 2.3 million Palestinians, has been under Israeli blockade since 2007 when Hamas seized power from the secular Fateh movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Biden visit 

Before flying to Saudi Arabia on Friday, Biden visited the Israeli-occupied West Bank where he reiterated his administration's commitment to a two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

There "must be a political horizon that the Palestinian people can actually see", Biden said.

"I know that the goal of the two states seems so far away," he said in Bethlehem, alongside the Palestinian leader Abbas.

Abbas said “recognising the state of Palestine” is the key to peace.

With Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations moribund since 2014, the US delegation has been focusing on economic measures.

Biden announced an additional $200 million for the United Nations agency serving Palestinian refugees, which saw funding cut by the previous US president Donald Trump.

During a visit earlier Friday to a hospital in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, Biden pledged a $100 million aid package for medical institutions in the area.

He also announced plans to roll out infrastructure for 4G internet across the Gaza Strip and the West Bank by the end of next year, fulfilling a longstanding aspiration among Palestinians.

Biden earlier held talks in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, during which a focal point was Iran’s nuclear programme and that country’s support for Hamas and other Islamist groups.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but has maintained a blockade of the coastal territory since the Hamas takeover.