17 Nov 2012

Deaths as Israel expands air assaults on Gaza

An Israeli air strike killed four Palestinians in the central Gaza Strip, medics said, with Palestinian security sources confirming that at least three of them were Hamas fighters. The Israeli army, meanwhile, said that three soldiers were injured by a rocket fired from Gaza, with military sources adding they were "inside a building" when it happened.

Gaza bombed

Saturday's deaths raised the overall death toll in Gaza to 38 as a relentless Israeli air campaign against Gaza fighters entered its fourth straight day. "Three men died in an Israeli air strike on Maghazi camp in central Gaza," said emergency services spokesman Adham Abu Selmiya. A Palestinian security source told AFP that all three were from the armed wing of the ruling Hamas movement, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades. Medics said another person was killed in a strike on a motorcycle in the Tel al-Sultan neighbourhood of the southern city of Rafah.

Israel expanded its fierce air assault on rocket operations in the Gaza Strip, striking Hamas government and security compounds, tunnels and electricity sources after an unprecedented rocket attack aimed at the holy city of Jerusalem raised the stakes in its violent confrontation with armed Palestinians. Israeli aircraft on Saturday also kept pounding their initial targets, weapons-storage facilities and underground rocket-launching sites.

Al Jazeera English