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Israeli-Palestinian violence flares in Gaza, West Bank

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Violence between Israel and the Palestinians flared on Friday in the Gaza Strip, ruled by Islamic Hamas movement, and in the West Bank, ruled by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, leaving several people wounded, medics and witnesses said.

Palestinians inspect a destroyed house after it was hit during Israeli air raid in central Gaza Strip on Nov. 19, 2010. Israeli warplanes conducted three raids against the Gaza Strip Friday, wounding five Palestinians, witnesses and medical sources said. [Wissam Nassar/Xinhua]

An Israeli army spokesman told Israel Radio that a Grad rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed at an empty area early Friday near the town of Efokim in Negev in southern Israel, causing harms to a parking car with no injuries reported.

Later on Friday, three more mortar shells were fired from Gaza at southern Israel, he said, adding it is the first time that a long-range Grad rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip at southern Israel since the end of the three-week Israeli offensive Cast Lead on Jan. 18, 2009.

Violence in Gaza has intensified two days after Israel killed two members of the al-Qaida affiliated Army of Islam group in Gaza.

Al-Nasser Salah el-Dein, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a minor militant group loyal to Hamas movement, said in a communique sent to reporters that its militants fired the Grad rocket at Israel "in response to Israeli violation against the Palestinian people in Gaza."

Hamas movement is still under an undeclared truce with Israel reached at the end of the Gaza war, according to which Hamas should stop launching rockets at Israel. However, minor militant groups kept launching dozens of rockets at southern Israel; in response, Israel carried out limited retaliatory attacks on militants' targets and smuggling tunnels in the enclave.

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