Israel Kills Two in Strikes on Gaza as Truce Falters
Israeli air strikes on Hamas security targets in Gaza killed two Palestinians and wounded 30 people on Saturday, medical officials in the Islamist-ruled territory said, while heavier rocket fire by militants wounded an Israeli man.
The escalating violence undermined a shaky truce brokered by Egypt on Wednesday, which sought to calm the latest flare-up in fighting that began on Monday when an Israeli man and two gunmen were killed in a raid launched from Egypt’s Sinai desert.
One of the victims was a Palestinian man killed in an Israeli air strike which targeted a motorcycle near a building in Gaza City, Hamas medical officials said. Ten other people were wounded in that attack.
In an earlier strike, a Palestinian militant from a pro-al Qaeda Salafist group was killed in northern Gaza, the officials said. Israel confirmed both strikes, but denied a report a six-year-old Palestinian boy had died in a separate air strike.
The Israeli strikes followed the fiercest rocket attacks on its territory in six days of fighting. Shrapnel from a rocket fired into the Israeli town of Sderot wounded an Israeli man in the neck just as he was trying to enter a concrete shelter.
After a relatively calm period, more than 150 rockets have been fired into Israel in the past week, the military said.