GAZA, July 5 (Xinhua) -- Israeli tanks stepped into an industrial zone in the northern Gaza Strip Wednesday night, witnesses said.

    About a dozen tanks entered the sites of the former Israeli settlement of Nissanit near the Erez border crossing point which had been evacuated last year, according to the witnesses. The Israeli tanks operation came in the wake of Palestinian militants' rocket attacks on Israeli southern coastal city Ashkelon.

    Palestinian militants fired two more rockets on Ashkelon, one of which slammed into a southern neighborhood of the city and the second landed in the Kibbutz Zikim area, Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported.

    Israel decided earlier on Wednesday to expand an ongoing military operation in the Gaza Strip in reaction to stepped-up Palestinian rocket attacks.

    A Qassam rocket landed at the center of the southern Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon for the first time on Tuesday evening, causing damages to a high school building but no injury. Enditem