Palestinian rocket kills Palestinian laborer in Israel as militants continue to trade fire

GAZA CITY, GAZA STRIP

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 and vowing to step up its campaign.

Shrapnel from a Palestinian

rocket that slammed into an agricultural community in Israel’s southern Negev desert killed a Palestinian laborer who had been working inside Israel, Israeli defense officials said. A second Palestinian laborer was badly wounded.

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. But residents said homes of people uninvolved in fighting had been struck.

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 a 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.

Islamic Jihad militants fired several barrages of rockets toward southern Israel, where tens of thousands of Israelis were instructed to remain close to safe rooms and bomb shelters. Hundreds of residents near the border were evacuated to hotels farther north.

Islamic Jihad promised a further onslaught. “As assassinations and the bombing of apartments and safe houses continue, the Palestinian resistance will renew its rocket fire … to emphasize the continuation of the confrontation,” the group said. Mortar shells fired by Palestinian militants crashed into the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel, the Israeli civil defense body said, sharing footage of a fiery explosion at the main passageway into Israel.

Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said Israel had made “significant achievements” throughout the fighting and that Islamic Jihad’s continued fire “enables us to continue to make further achievements.”

“We are prepared to continue the targeted strikes and striking in a precise and increasing manner,” he added.