4 Gazans wounded in Israel air strike after new group fires rockets

After a previously unknown group in the Gaza Strip launched rockets into Israel on Friday, Israel hit Hamas's military wing, wounding four policemen.

A hospital official told AFP that one officer was critically injured and the rest moderately hurt in the strike on a training facility of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, near El Bureij refugee camp in the centre of the strip.

The rocket attack that hit southern Israel was claimed by a previously unheard of group calling itself "The Grandsons of the Companions of the Prophet".

Security experts told the Jerusalem Post that the group is thought to be working independently from Hamas.

The group said the attack was "the first response by Salafist jihadists to Jewish attacks against Al-Aqsa".

Out of three launched rockets, only one reportedly entered Israeli territory and no injured were reported, according to the Israeli army. 

In response, the air force "targeted a Hamas terror infrastructure in the central Gaza Strip. A direct hit was confirmed," Israel's military said.

Hamas is the de factor power in Gaza and Israel formally holds it responsible for any attack launched from the coastal territory.

"Hamas must fulfill its responsibilities or face the consequences," an army statement said.