Gaza City – Gaza militants fired rockets at southern Israel on Monday, in violence that tested a shaky truce brokered by Egypt after a border flare-up that has claimed the lives of a dozen Palestinian gunmen and an Israeli civilian since the weekend.
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An Israeli military spokeswoman said four rockets slammed into the Ashkelon and Beersheba regions as darkness fell on Monday, while a fifth was intercepted by a missile defense shield which witnesses said set off a loud explosion.
There were no reported injuries.
Israel, saying it had targeted a rocket-firing squad, killed two militants with an air strike in southern Gaza just after midnight on Monday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addressing parliament at the opening of its winter session, said Israel would use its “force and determination” against militants and follow a policy that “if someone rises us to kill you, you kill him first.”
There were no immediate claims of responsibility issued for Monday’s rocket fire. More than three dozen other rockets fired at Israel since the weekend were claimed by the Iranian-allied Islamic Jihad group, a rival of Gaza’s Hamas Islamist rulers.
The latest round of violence began when Israel, responding to rocket fire at the city of Ashdod on Wednesday which set off sirens as far as the southern reaches of Tel Aviv, attacked Islamic Jihad bases in the Gaza Strip with aerial strikes on Saturday, killing nine gunmen.
Islamic Jihad fired more than 30 rockets at Israel on Saturday and Sunday, killing an Israeli man in the city of Ashkelon and injuring at least two other people.
Egyptian officials who are often involved in efforts to mediate between Israel and the gunmen who have no direct contact with the Jewish state, said Sunday they were able to get both sides to agree to a ceasefire.
There had earlier been a relatively long lull in border violence in the run-up to a prisoner swap on October 18 in which Israel released 477 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held by Hamas since 2006.
Lay one Arab city into rubble. Then let them ask for ceasefire. To h*ll with the media, the UN, the Arab countries, Iran, the liberal media, and even the White House. Wipe out Islamic Jihad, don’t teach them lessons. Eradicate Hamas. No token assassinations. Then they need to come bowing to Israel begging for mercy. Then, we’ll think about it.
start releasing more prisoners, the more you give the more fire rockets you get..
Who would have guessed… Arabs not keeping their word on the cease-fire.
Why do you call them militants? The proper name for these animals is terrorists.
Please recognize that” militants” has a much more righteous ring to it-terrorists cause terror by aiming to instill fear in a civilian population-militants tend to fight against soldiers and an established government-terror is not their goal.
A rocket for a rocket.
Israel needs to bomb Gaza 24/7 with no relief – just like NATO did to Libya – that’s the only language they understand
what a sick and disgusting joke, this Israeli government has become,
this leftist traitorous self hating cowardly government,has turned all of Israel into a modern version of the Warsaw Ghetto,where jewish children must hide and sleep in bunkers,and where schools have to be closed,because these traitorous cowardly leftist swines will not defend it’s citizens,citizens of Israel,is this why we had to come back to our Israel after 1900 years of exile? would any other normal country tolerate thousand of rockets raining down on it’s population centers, and not wipe out the enemy?,citizens of Israel ,it is time for a revolution,march up by the millions to Jerusalem,and storm that insane asylum called the Knesset,and drag those traitorous leftist swines out of there,put them on trial for treason,and install a government that would protect it’s country and it’s people.
CH.S
They are terrorists not militants. Only the BBC calls them militants.