ISRAELI AIRCRAFT hit targets across Gaza yesterday, as Israeli officials threatened more military action.
Palestinian medical sources said three children were hurt in the fiercest attacks since the three-week Israeli military offensive in December 2008.
The Israeli military reported that metal workshops used for producing weapons and arms caches were destroyed, saying the actions were in response to the firing of a rocket from Gaza on Thursday that landed close to the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.
Palestinians said a dairy factory, caravans and military look-out posts were also hit in the air strikes.
The latest upsurge in violence follows the killing of two Israeli soldiers and two Palestinian gunmen during clashes just over the border in Gaza last weekend.
Israeli planes dropped pamphlets over parts of Gaza before the air strikes, warning residents that attacks to avenge the killing of the soldiers were imminent.
Rocket attacks by militants and Israeli strikes have once again become an almost daily occurrence, shattering the relative calm that has existed since the war in Gaza last winter.
Israel’s deputy prime minister Silvan Shalom warned that Israel may be forced to launch a new ground offensive if the rocket fire continued.
“If this rocket fire against Israel does not stop, it seems we will have to raise the level of our activity and step up our actions against Hamas,” he said. “We won’t allow frightened children to again be raised in bomb shelters and so, in the end, it will force us to launch another military operation.”
Most of the rocket fire has come from smaller militant factions, although Israel holds Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in the summer of 2007, solely responsible.
Hamas prime minister in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh called on the international community to intervene to stop the “Israeli escalation and aggression”. He said Hamas was in contact with the smaller factions to maintain quiet.
On Thursday, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov spoke by phone with Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal and asked that Hamas end the rocket fire against Israel. He said Mr Meshaal had promised to act, telling him that Hamas sought to restore calm.
Israel believes that Hamas is continuing to build up its military capabilities by smuggling advanced weapons via tunnels under Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.
On Wednesday, Egyptian security forces uncovered a large weapons cache in the Sinai. The Egyptians believe that the arms, which included 100 anti-aircraft missiles and 40 rocket rocket-propelled grenades, were destined for Gaza.
Tension was already high over Israel’s decision to build more homes for Jews in east Jerusalem, in areas captured during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
US president Barack Obama is still waiting for Israel’s response to a list of demands he presented to Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu last month for Israeli actions, including a freeze on construction in Arab areas of Jerusalem, designed to get the peace talks with the Palestinians back on track.