Hamas denies firing rockets into Israel

A minister in the Hamas-led government in Gaza has denied that the movement fired rockets into Israel during Barack Obama’s visit. Minister of Religious Endowments Ismail Radwan accused Israel of fabricating the story to provide an excuse for an escalation of its military incursions into the besieged Palestinian territory. Israel has threatened “to respond at the appropriate time” to two missiles that it claims landed near Sderot, a town built on land belonging to the village of Najd from which Palestinians were driven out at gunpoint by Jewish militias on 13 May 1948.

Mr. Radwan insisted that all of the factions in the Gaza Strip are committed to the national consensus about the ceasefire agreed in Cairo last November which brought Israel’s offensive against the people of Gaza to an end. Whereas the government in Gaza has abided by the ceasefire terms, Israel has broken them more than one hundred times since it was agreed.