Israeli war jets struck on Friday night three targets in western Gaza city and in central and southern Gaza Strip, wounding at least nine people, witnesses and medics said.

Witnesses in western Gaza city told Xinhua they heard two successive explosions, adding that the explosions were a result of an airstrike on a security compound closed to the beachside of the city.

The security compound is controlled by Islamic Hamas movement police, which has been ruling the Gaza Strip since it seized control of it by force in June 2007. Ambulances and firefighters rushed to the area.

Adham Abu Selmeya, a Hamas medical official told Xinhua that nine police officers were injured in the airstrike on the police training compound in western Gaza City, and all were evacuated to Shifa Hospital in the city.

Two other successive airstrikes were carried out against two different targets in eastern and southern Gaza Strip. No injuries were reported, said the witnesses.

The first strike was on an empty filed in eastern Gaza Strip and the second was on the tunnels area under the borderline between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, said Hamas police sources.

The successive Israeli airstrikes came several hours after a Russian-made Grad rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip at the southern costal Israeli town of Ashkelon. Damage was reported, but there were no injuries.

The Popular Resistance Committee, a pro-Hamas militant group in Gaza claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that the Arab League decision to resume the direct peace talks with Israel "is absurd and useless."