text: A still image taken from Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) video footage shows what they say is a small unidentified aircraft shot down in a mid-air interception after it crossed into southern Israel October 6, 2012. 
   
   DUBAI (Reuters) - The incursion by an unmanned aircraft into Israeli airspace at the weekend exposed the weakness of Israeli air defenses, an Iranian military official was quoted as saying on Monday. 
   
   The Israeli air force shot down a drone on Saturday after it crossed into southern Israel, the military said, but it remained unclear where the aircraft had come from. 
   
   Jamaluddin Aberoumand, deputy coordinator for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said the incident indicated that Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile defense system "does not work and lacks the necessary capacity", Fars news agency reported. 
   
   The Iron Dome system, jointly funded with the United States, is designed to shoot down short-range guerrilla rockets, not slow-flying aircraft. It intercepted more than 80 percent of the targets it engaged in March when nearly 300 rockets and mortars were fired at southern Israel, the Pentagon said at the time. 
   
   The drone was first spotted above the Mediterranean near the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to the west of Israel, said military spokeswoman Avital Leibovich. An Israeli warplane shot it down above a forest near the occupied West Bank. 
   
   Israeli parliament member Miri Regev, a former chief spokesman of the military, wrote on Twitter it was an "Iranian drone launched by Hezbollah", referring to the Lebanese Shi'ite group that fought a war with Israel in 2006. 
   
   Israeli defense officials have not confirmed this. 
   
   Aberoumand attributed claims the drone was made by Iran to a "psychological operation" by Israel, but did not confirm or deny them. "The Zionist regime (Israel) has many enemies," he added. 
   
   On at least one occasion, Iranian-backed Hezbollah has sent a drone into Israeli airspace. And in 2010, an Israeli warplane shot down an apparently unmanned balloon in the Negev near the country's Dimona nuclear reactor. 
   
   The Israeli military released a 10-second video clip of what it said was Saturday's mid-air interception, showing a small aircraft just before a missile from a fighter jet destroys it. 
   
   Israel has threatened to bomb Iran's nuclear sites if diplomatic efforts fail to stop the nuclear work it believes is aimed at getting weapons capability, a charge Tehran denies. 
   
   Iran has responded with threats to attack U.S. military bases in the region and retaliate against Israel if attacked. 
   
   (Reporting By Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Alistair Lyon) ||||| GAZA Israel said it struck targets in the Gaza Strip on Monday after Palestinian militants fired rockets at southern Israel, in what they said was a response to an Israeli air strike that killed one militant and wounded a second a day earlier. 
   
   Israel said its air raid targeted 25-year-old Mohammed Makawi whom it linked to a radical group involved in a recent Sinai border attack in which an Israeli was killed. Hospital sources in Gaza said Makawi died of his wounds. 
   
   The armed wing of Hamas, the Islamists who control the Gaza Strip, said it had joined in Monday's rocket attack along with the smaller Islamic Jihad group. 
   
   Gaza has been under the control of Hamas since 2007. The Islamist group rejects permanent peace with Israel and the two sides fought a three-week war in December-January 2008-2009. The border is tense, with frequent clashes. 
   
   The Israeli army says over 470 rockets have been fired from Gaza this year, but it was the first time since June that Hamas had acknowledged launching rockets at Israel. A Hamas spokesman said the movement would not remain passive in the face of what it called "one-sided" Israeli violence. 
   
   The Israeli army said it had targeted "Hamas terror activity sites and terrorist squads responsible for the rocket fire", but gave no details. Israeli forces say they will not tolerate such attacks and will hold Hamas responsible for them. 
   
   Gaza hospital officials said one Islamic Jihad militant thought to have been involved in the rocket attack had been wounded by Israeli tank fire east of the town of Rafah. 
   
   Residents of Khan Younis in southern Gaza said an Israeli tank fired at the suspected launch area, slightly wounding four children and damaging a minaret and a water tower. 
   
   Abu Ubaida, spokesman of the Hamas armed wing Izz El-Deen Al-Qassam Brigades, said the rocket firing was a message to Israel that it would not accept "a formula of a one-sided aggression by the occupation on flimsy pretexts". 
   
   With Egyptian mediation, Hamas has made efforts in the past to clamp down on smaller militant groups that persist in mounting attacks on Israel, partly in order to avoid another devastating war. The Israeli offensive in the winter of 2009 killed more than 1,000 Palestinians. 
   
   But on Monday Abu Ubaida said Hamas had displayed a "high level of coordination" with Islamic Jihad in unleashing the latest rocket barrage. 
   
   "Should the enemy continue its aggression against the Gaza Strip the reaction by the resistance will be stronger and broader," he said. 
   
   The homemade weapons fired from Gaza are inaccurate, but potentially lethal. An Israeli spokeswoman said some exploded harmlessly on Monday near the border with the Gaza Strip. But one kibbutz resident said children could have been killed. 
   
   "It was a very powerful barrage," Ilan Yosef of Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak near the Gaza border told Israel radio. "The goat pen in the (children's) petting corner was severely hit and a vet is treating the animals still alive and dealing with those that aren't." 
   
   (Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Alistair Lyon)
target: – Israel launched a round of airstrikes on Gaza today, wounding two militants and eight bystanders, including some children. Israel says the attack was retaliation for a round of Palestinian rockets fired yesterday, which Palestinians say were in response to another Israeli airstrike earlier in the day, Reuters reports. More than 470 rockets have been fired from Gaza since June, but this was the first time Hamas acknowledged responsibility. As usual the rockets failed to harm anyone, though one did kill some goats at a petting zoo. The incident comes in the wake of a drone flight into Israeli airspace this weekend, which some have speculated came from Iran. An Iranian military official today boasted that the incident proved that Israel is vulnerable, and that its anti-missile defense system "does not work and lacks the necessary capacity." But he denied that the drone was made by Iran, saying such accusations represented a "psychological operation" on Israel's part. "The Zionist regime has many enemies," he said. Iran, meanwhile, is blaming Israel for a hack attack on its oil rigs.