Israelis raid Gaza twice after rockets fired

Two people wounded in Nuseirat refugee camp, no casualties reported in Jabaliya refugee camp.

JERUSALEM: Israeli warplanes carried out two raids on the Gaza Strip early Sunday, wounding two people, Palestinian emergency services said.

The strikes were confirmed by the Israeli army, which said they came in response to Palestinian rockets fired at Israeli territory the previous night.

Two people were wounded in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. The other raid, on the Jabaliya refugee camp north of Gaza City, did not result in any casualties.

An army spokeswoman said one raid targeted a centre of activities by Hamas which rules the Strip, while the other was aimed at an arms workshop.

Arabs held for plotting Jerusalem attack: police

Israeli police and agents of the Shin Bet security service arrested five Arab men suspected of involvement in a plot to fire a rocket into a Jerusalem football stadium, the agency said on Sunday.

A Shin Bet statement said that two of the men, Mussa Hamada and Bassem Omari, had for several years been active in Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood in Jerusalem.

The two were formally charged on Sunday with "membership in and support for a terrorist organisation, firearms offences and conspiracy to commit a crime," the statement said.

Three other men have already been charged with trafficking in weapons, it added.

Hamada and the three accomplices were described as residents of east Jerusalem, a term used to describe Palestinians authorised to live in Jerusalem but who do not have Israeli citizenship.

"During one of the meetings, the Saudi representative gave Hamada money for the purchase of weapons and asked in return that he gather information on Jerusalem," the statement said.

More than 270,000 Arabs live in east Jerusalem, which was occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed shortly after, in a move not recognised by the international community.

Very few of them hold Israeli citizenship although Palestinian residents of the city enjoy special status which allows them free movement throughout Israel, unlike Palestinians in the West Bank.