CAIRO, Egypt — The anti-Israeli Palestinian militant group Hamas has issued a video threatening daily attacks on an Israeli town unless Israeli soldiers halt a month-long operation aimed at stopping rocket attacks.

The video aired Tuesday on the pan-Arab television station Al-Arabiya featured three masked men surrounded by weapons and standing before a green flag emblazoned with the Muslim credo: "There is no god but God and Mohammed is his prophet."

One of the men read a statement threatening to rain rockets on the Israeli town of Sderot and identifying his group as "the Brigades of the Martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam," Hamas's military wing.

Hamas, blamed for dozens of suicide bombings in Israel and considered a terrorist organization by the United States, has not issued such video threats in the past.

The video resembled those produced by the al Qaeda terror network and by militant groups fighting U.S. forces in Iraq, illustrating how extremist groups influence each other. Such groups have embraced modern communications, sending videos to Arab TV stations with wide viewerships or putting them on the Internet to rally sympathizers, spread their ideology and increase their profile

"We will continue to shell you every day to see what your defeated army will do for you," the Hamas threat said. "Oh residents of Sderot, stop your army from carrying out their crimes and get them out of Beit Hanoun otherwise you will play the price."

In June, a Hamas rocket killed two Israelis, including a four-year-old boy, for the first time in nearly four years of fighting. In response, the Israeli army launched a broad operation in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, which sits on the border with Israel.

However, the operation has been ineffective so far, and militants have managed to fire off barrages despite the army's presence in the border area.

The Israeli town of Sderot is about three kilometres from the Gaza Strip, making it an easy target for the highly inaccurate, homemade rockets manufactured by Hamas and other militant groups.