GAZA CITY, Feb 26: Israeli warplanes bombed militant training camps in the Gaza Strip for a second time on Saturday, wounding four people, including a toddler, Palestinian officials and medics said.

The jets hit two training camps of the Ezzedine al-Qassem Brigades, the armed wing of Gaza’s ruling Hamas movement, in the southern city of Rafah, Hamas security officials said.

A family of four, including an 18-month-old girl, were lightly wounded, after their vehicle was hit by shrapnel as they were driving by one of the targets, Adham Abu Selmiya, a spokesman for the Hamas-run rescue services, said.

A third air strike hit an Islamic Jihad facility west of Khan Yunis, witnesses said.

The raids came after pre-dawn strikes against two other training camps of the hardline Islamic Jihad group.

The military had no immediate comment on the afternoon strikes, but said the earlier attacks “targeted a number of terror hubs... in response to recent rocket fire into Israel.” The air raids came after tensions rose along the Israel-Gaza border this week following clashes in which an Islamic Jihad gunman was killed and a rocket attack on the Israeli city of Beersheba that hit a house but caused no casualties.

It was the first rocket to strike the city since the devastating offensive Israel waged against Gaza in December 2008-January 2009 and prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to warn the territory’s militants not to “test” the Jewish state.—AFP