Israel launches air strikes in Gaza: Hamas

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel launched air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday striking tunnels along the border with Egypt and an abandoned building, Hamas officials said.

The Israeli army had no immediate comment on the strikes which came a day after two explosive devices said to have originated in the Hamas-ruled Gaza territory washed up on Israel's coastline.

There were no immediate reports of injuries from the bombings witnesses said were carried out by Israeli air force fighter jets at an abandoned airport and on tunnels Israel says are used to smuggle weapons into the coastal territory.

The attacks came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a news conference alongside Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi that Israel would respond to the explosives found on the country's beaches.

Palestinian militants from the Israeli-blockaded territory claimed responsibility for what Israel described as an unusual type of attempted attack. Most attacks from Gaza in the past few years have been by rocket shootings at Israeli towns.

The Islamic Jihad group said it had floated the explosives out to sea in a joint operation with two other groups including the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement.

Hamas, an Islamist group that seized control of Gaza in 2007, has largely reined in its own militants since a devastating war with Israel a year ago in which 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.

In a separate development, an Arab resident of an Israeli town was spotted wandering toward the Gaza border, an Israeli military official said. The same man has made previous attempts to illegally cross into Egypt and Jordan, and was believed to be mentally unstable, the official added.

Palestinian witnesses said Hamas police officials took the man into custody after he crossed into Gaza. There were no further details immediately available about the case.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Peter Millership)