Three killed as Gaza rockets hit South Israel

Rockets killed three people in Israel Thursday soon after three militants died in an air strike, as Israel pressed a vast Gaza operation which began with a hit on a Hamas chief.

"We have three killed," spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP, saying four other people were also injured in a "direct hit on a house" in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi, which lies 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of the Gaza Strip.

Police said at least 130 rockets had been fired since Israel killed Hamas military chief Ahmed Jaabari in a strike on a car in Gaza City on Wednesday afternoon.

"All the major cities in southern Israel were hit, and the majority of the more serious damage was in Beersheva," police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld told AFP, saying police had raised the level of alert across Israel "in order to deal with the possibility of terror attacks."

Schools within 40 kilometers (24 miles) of Gaza were closed, and those living within seven kilometers (four miles) of the strip had been told not to go to work, he said. "It's a pretty serious situation."

In Gaza, Palestinian medics said three Hamas militants were killed in an early morning strike near the southern city of Khan Yunis, raising to 11 the number of Palestinians killed since the hit on Jaabari at around 1400 GMT on Wednesday.

"Eleven people have been killed and 115 people injured," he told AFP.

Among the dead were five Hamas militants, two children, a woman and an elderly man, he said. The identities of the other two were not immediately clear.

-AFP

Source: http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=456807

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