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Hamas launches 100 more missiles in direction of Ashkelon

Earlier the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades announced the launch of 50 missiles

CAIRO, May 14. /TASS/. The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas organization, which controls the Gaza Strip, announced the launch of 100 additional missiles in the direction of the Israeli city of Ashkelon, Palestine’s radio station Dunya Al Watan informed on Friday.

Hamas informed that the coastal enclave had launched the missiles at 02:00 local time (same as Moscow time). These attacks came as a response to "the death of civilians and fighters of the movement as well as to the destruction of infrastructure in the [Gaza] Strip" as a result of Israeli attacks, Hamas stated.

Earlier on Friday, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades announced the launch of 50 missiles in the direction of the Israeli cities of Ashkelon and Ashdod. Besides, the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad, informed of new strikes in the direction of Be'er Sheva, Ashkelon and Sderot. For their part, the al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades (the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees) informed of two strikes in the direction of Netivot, a city in southern Israel.

The exchange of missile attacks between Israel and the Gaza Strip, which has been going on since May 10, was triggered by riots in East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque. Clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police officers erupted after an Israeli court had ruled to evict several Palestinian families from the city’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and hand the property over to Jewish settlers, saying that they had owned it before 1948. The Gaza Health Ministry said earlier that at least 109 Palestinians had been killed in the attacks, and over 620 people were injured. Media reports say that Palestinian radicals’ attacks on Israeli cities have killed at least six Israelis.

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