Gaza City: Israel and Palestinian militants unleashed salvos of fire for a fifth day on Saturday, with the Islamic Jihad militant group launching dozens more rockets and the Israeli military pounding targets inside the Gaza Strip.
Missile shrapnel from a Palestinian rocket that slammed into an agricultural community in Israel’s southern Negev desert severely wounded two Palestinians from Gaza in their 40s who had been working in Israel.
Another 36-year-old man was moderately wounded, Israeli medics said. There were no immediate reports of casualties Saturday from Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, where so far 34 Palestinians have been killed, at least 14 of them civilians, according to Palestinian health officials. Over 147 have been wounded.
In a reminder of the combustible situation in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military raided the Balata refugee camp near the northern city of Nablus, sparking a firefight that killed two Palestinians.
In a separate incident near the northern city of Jenin, Israeli police said they shot and killed a suspected Palestinian assailant who ran toward soldiers wielding a knife.
Meanwhile, hopes for an imminent cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad were fading as the Israeli military Saturday bombed an apartment belonging to Islamic Jihad commander Mohammed Abu Al Atta, among other targets including rocket launchers, it said.