Israel attacks Gaza, Palestinians fire rockets as armistice drags on

GAZA/JERUSALEM — Palestinian militants in Gaza resumed rocket fire on Israel early Saturday morning after Israeli aircraft bombed Islamic Jihad targets in the enclave overnight. The battle entered its fifth day.

Egypt is trying to broker a ceasefire over the flare-up that has killed at least 33 Palestinians and one Israeli so far.

The violence extended for more than a year the resurgence of violence between Israel and Palestine, which has killed more than 140 Palestinians and at least 19 Israelis and foreigners since January.

The military said it had attacked Islamic Jihad Command and rocket launchers in a pre-dawn operation. Grainy black-and-white aerial footage released by the agency showed explosions and smoke billowing from the bombed site.

Hours later, Gaza militants fired rockets, blared sirens and forced Israelis in the border area to run to air raid shelters. There were no reports of casualties.

Six top Islamic Jihad commanders have been killed since Tuesday when the Israeli military launched an operation against the group it said was planning an attack.

Islamic Jihad, Gaza’s largest militant group after Hamas, then fired about 1,000 rockets, some of which went deep into Israel.

A woman was killed Thursday after a rocket hit her apartment in the Tel Aviv suburb.

At least four women and six children have died in densely populated Gaza, a poor coastal area blockaded by Israel and Egypt since 2007.

Israel says four Palestinians have been killed in a failed rocket attack in Gaza, but Islamic Jihad denies this.

Islamic Jihad denies coexistence with Israel and preaches its destruction. The top ministers of Israel’s religious nationalist government are excluding any Palestinian-claimed state in the territory Israeli-occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.Reuters