Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - At least five rockets fired from Gaza were shot down over Tel Aviv and the surrounding area on Wednesday, army radio said, following the Israeli air force bombing of 160 targets in the Gaza Strip overnight.

"Overnight, the Israeli army hit about 160 targets in the Gaza Strip. Over the last two days we attacked a total of about 430 targets," General Moti Almoz told military radio as Operation Protective Edge entered its second day.

Targets included about 120 concealed rocket launchers, 10 Hamas command and control centers, among them two homes, and many tunnels, he said.

Rocket fire from Gaza set sirens wailing but all five were intercepted in mid-flight by a battery of Israel's vaunted Iron Dome anti-missile system, the radio said. Hamas's armed wing the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades claimed the rocket fire, saying it had launched four M75 rockets at Israel's commercial capital.

Hamas's weapons stockpile has suffered significant damage over the past two days," Almoz told the radio.

He said the Islamist movement has been "forced into a corner" and was trying to launch attacks on multiple fronts.

"Last night, Hamas started to unveil its surprises," he said referring to an attempted attack by sea and the barrage of long-range rockets fired at cities as far away as Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the northern coastal city of Hadera, which is more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Gaza.

"Hamas was trying to surprise and find the weak points and penetrate Israel by sea or through tunnels; these incidents were thwarted very successfully by the Israeli Army ," he said.

Bitter enemies

Israel and Hamas are bitter enemies that have engaged in numerous rounds of fighting over the years. But until recently, they had been observing a truce that ended the previous hostilities in 2012.

Palestinian Minister of Public Works and Housing Mufeel al-Hasayneh said 50 houses were destroyed on Tuesday and 1,700 were partially damaged.

Palestinian medics reported at least 28 dead, including six killed in an airstrike that flattened an apartment building in southern Gaza and set off widespread panic. They added that more than 150 were wounded in the deadliest day of violence in the coastal strip since 2012.

Another airstrike flattened the home of one of Hamas’s leaders in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, reducing the concrete structure into a smoldering pile of rubble.

Emergency services earlier said that a man named Ashraf Yassin was also killed when Israeli fighter planes targeted an area west of Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

The man is reportedly a member of Hamas’s armed wing, Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.

*Al Arabiya