rocket fire
© Global Look Press / ZUMA Press / Mahmoud Issa
Footage has emerged showing Israeli missile defenses shooting down rockets allegedly launched from the direction of the Gaza Strip. One rocket out of the three reportedly managed to pierce the Iron Dome defense system.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) reported late Thursday that three rockets were launched towards Israeli territory from the area of the Gaza Strip, two of which were taken down by the Israeli air defenses. Videos posted on social media show several projectiles lightning up the night skies over the border communities of Nir Am, Ivim and Sderot near the Gaza border, followed by several loud bangs - resembling the sounds of explosions.

While two of the missiles were apparently intercepted, one was reported to have landed in an open field in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, located less than a mile from Gaza. No casualties or injuries have been reported from the attack.

However, as rocket alarms sounded off in the city, a mother and her 3-week-old baby were injured as they rushed for cover in the ensuing panic. The baby was taken to hospital, with her condition being described as "moderate," the Jerusalem Post reported. The mother has suffered minor injuries.

The shelling came just hours after an Israeli fighter jet struck what the IDF described as "Hamas targets in Gaza"in retaliation to a "rocket" and "explosive balloons" that had been launched from the Palestinian enclave controlled by the militant group Hamas.

The flare-up comes as Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza turned out in large numbers to protest the US President Donald Trump's peace plan for the Middle East, which envisions a Palestinian state in the form of several enclaves surrounded by the Israeli territory, a capital in the Jerusalem eastern suburb of Abu Dis, and a tunnel connecting the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The plan has drawn outrage from various Palestinian factions, which have all rejected the deal. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that it would be impossible for Palestine to "accept a state without Jerusalem," which, according to the plan, remains the US-recognized capital of Israel.