JERUSALEM — Israeli medical services say a man has been killed by a rocket that hit an apartment building in southern Israel and a woman was critically wounded.

Magen David Adom says the two were trapped in an apartment in Ashkelon that was struck by a rocket from Gaza early on Tuesday. It's the first casualty in Israel from the most intensive wave of attacks since the 2014 Gaza war.

Gaza militants pummeled Israel overnight with dozens of rockets and the Israeli military responded with strikes against militant targets in Gaza.

The military says there were some 370 launches from Gaza since the current round began on Monday afternoon. About 100 of them were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defense system.

Israel has struck more than 100 militant targets in Gaza. </s> JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli medical services say a man has been killed by a rocket that hit an apartment building in southern Israel and a woman was critically wounded.

Magen David Adom says the two were trapped in an apartment in Ashkelon that was struck by a rocket from Gaza early on Tuesday. It's the first casualty in Israel from the most intensive wave of attacks since the 2014 Gaza war.

Gaza militants pummeled Israel overnight with dozens of rockets and the Israeli military responded with strikes against militant targets in Gaza.

The military says there were some 370 launches from Gaza since the current round began on Monday afternoon. About 100 of them were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defense system.

Israel has struck more than 100 militant targets in Gaza. </s> JERUSALEM — Israeli medical services say a man has been killed by a rocket that hit an apartment building in southern Israel and a woman was critically wounded.

Magen David Adom says the two were trapped in an apartment in Ashkelon that was struck by a rocket from Gaza early on Tuesday. It’s the first casualty in Israel from the most intensive wave of attacks since the 2014 Gaza war.

Gaza militants pummeled Israel overnight with dozens of rockets and the Israeli military responded with strikes against militant targets in Gaza.

The military says there were some 370 launches from Gaza since the current round began on Monday afternoon. About 100 of them were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defence system.

Israel has struck more than 100 militant targets in Gaza. </s> JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli medical services say a man has been killed by a rocket that hit an apartment building in southern Israel and a woman was critically wounded.

Magen David Adom says the two were trapped in an apartment in Ashkelon that was struck by a rocket from Gaza early on Tuesday. It’s the first casualty in Israel from the most intensive wave of attacks since the 2014 Gaza war.

Gaza militants pummeled Israel overnight with dozens of rockets and the Israeli military responded with strikes against militant targets in Gaza.

The military says there were some 370 launches from Gaza since the current round began on Monday afternoon. About 100 of them were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system.

Israel has struck more than 100 militant targets in Gaza. </s> The Israel Defense Forces have released a video showing an injured woman being pulled from the rubble of a house following a rocket attack by Palestinian militants on Tuesday.

The video shows Israeli first responders arriving at the house to find the bleeding woman lying in the rubble near what appears to be the body of a man.

“Check if there’s a baby,” rescuers are heard saying frantically.

It’s not clear whether there was a baby in the house, located in the coastal city of Ashkelon some 13 kilometres north of the Gaza border.

READ MORE: Ceasefire between Hamas, Israel ends 2 days of intense fighting

“Last night, Palestinian terrorists in Gaza fired a barrage of rockets into Israel. One of the rockets struck this house in Ashkelon,” the IDF said in a tweet accompanying the video. “This was the scene when Israeli first-responders entered. It is graphic, but it’s important we show it. Hamas sees all of Israel as a target.”

Several missiles were launched from Gaza into Ashkelon on Tuesday.

Seth Frantzman, a journalist with the Jerusalem Post, took this video showing rockets lighting up the sky above Ashkelon as some residents scrambled to find safety:

WATCH: Israeli man records moment rocket attack begins in the city of Ashkelon

Shortly after the video was released, Hamas and other militant groups said they had signed on to an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire to end two days of intense fighting with Israel.

The region had been paralyzed by hundreds of Palestinian rocket attacks in southern Israel and scores of Israeli airstrikes on targets in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli man records moment rocket attack begins in the city of Ashkelon Israeli man records moment rocket attack begins in the city of Ashkelon Aftermath of Israeli airstrike on Hamas state TV station in Gaza City

Since Monday, Israeli air strikes had killed seven Palestinians, at least five of them gunmen, and destroyed several buildings used by Gaza‘s ruling Hamas Islamists.

Rocket attacks from Gaza sent residents of southern Israel to shelters, wounding dozens and killing a Palestinian laborer from the occupied West Bank.

The flare-up in violence was prompted by a botched Israeli undercover operation in Gaza, which led to fighting that killed a Hamas commander, six other Palestinian militants and an Israeli colonel.

— With files from Reuters and the Associated Press </s> JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli medical services say a man has been killed by a rocket that hit an apartment building in southern Israel and a woman was critically wounded.

Magen David Adom says the two were trapped in an apartment in Ashkelon that was struck by a rocket from Gaza early on Tuesday. It's the first casualty in Israel from the most intensive wave of attacks since the 2014 Gaza war.

Gaza militants pummeled Israel overnight with dozens of rockets and the Israeli military responded with strikes against militant targets in Gaza.

The military says there were some 370 launches from Gaza since the current round began on Monday afternoon. About 100 of them were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defense system.

Israel has struck more than 100 militant targets in Gaza.

An Israeli soldier walks by a house damaged by a missile fired from the Gaza Strip in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Palestinian militants bombarded Israel with dozens of rockets and mortar shells Monday, while Israeli warplanes struck targets throughout the Gaza Strip in what appeared to be the most intense exchange of fire since a 2014 war. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike hit Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV station in the Gaza Strip, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. The station went off the air after the airstrike. Minutes earlier, it had halted its programming and been broadcasting a still image of its logo after the building was hit by a warning missile. Shortly after, three loud explosions were heard and the screen turned black. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

An Israeli soldier stands near a burning bus after it was hit by a mortar shell fired from Gaza near the Israel Gaza border, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. Israel's military says it is prepared to step up its efforts against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip if rocket fire at Israel continues. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

Flares fired from Israeli forces light up the night sky in Gaza City, Monday, Nov. 12, 2018, as the Israeli military launched fighter jets to strike "terror targets" throughout the Gaza Strip. Palestinian militants on Monday fired dozens of rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel, critically wounding an Israeli teen, in an intense barrage aimed at seeking revenge for a deadly Israeli military incursion late Sunday. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa) </s> Jerusalem (CNN) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "massive attacks against terrorist elements" in Gaza will continue after militants in the coastal enclave fired approximately 430 rockets towards Israel.

Speaking at the weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday morning, Netanyahu said: "Hamas bears the responsibility not only for its own attacks and actions but also for the actions of Islamic Jihad, and it is paying a very heavy price for this."

Israel has so far responded with airstrikes on more than 200 targets across Gaza, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

One Israeli was killed by a rocket that landed in the city of Ashkelon just north of Gaza, a Barzilai hospital statement said, and two Palestinian militants were killed in the airstrikes, according to Gaza health officials.

The IDF denied killing a one-year old baby and the baby's pregnant mother in Gaza, and said the deaths were caused by a Hamas rocket that misfired.

A 58-year-old man was killed when a rocket hit his house in Ashkelon, according to a statement from Barzilai hospital. He is the first Israeli to be killed by rocket fire since the end of the 2014 war.

Two gunmen from the armed wing of Islamic Jihad were killed overnight in Gaza, according to a statement from the militant group. Two other Palestinian men died in earlier airstrikes on Saturday.

The UN said it is working with Egypt to try to restore a ceasefire and says both sides are putting at risk efforts to relieve the suffering of people in Gaza.

The escalation began Saturday morning with about 50 rockets fired towards Israel within the course of an hour and continued late into the evening.

The IDF said its Iron Dome aerial defense system had intercepted dozens of the incoming rockets.

In response to the rockets, the IDF said it carried out airstrikes on about 200 militant targets in Gaza, including a tunnel, rocket launcher sites and other military compounds used by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ.) The military also struck a mosque in al-Shati in northern Gaza, which the IDF said was used a command and control center by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Turkey has condemned a strike on a building housing the office of its state-run Anadolu news agency, a building which Israel says is also used by Hamas's military intelligence.

A spokesman for Turkey's President said: "We urge all governments that claim to defend press freedom, including @USEmbassyTurkey to join us in condemning the Israeli government."

Israel announced that it is closing the two border crossings between Israel and Gaza, as well as closing the Gaza fishing zone.

The fishing zone was restricted to 6 nautical miles earlier this week following a rocket fired from Gaza that landed off the coast of Israel.

There was no specific date for when the crossings and the fishing zone would reopen.

Saturday's rocket barrage came less than a day after two militants from Hamas' armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, were killed in an Israeli strike on Hamas posts in Gaza.

Israel launched airstrikes Friday after two Israeli soldiers were wounded by sniper fire along the Gaza border.

Two other Palestinians died in Gaza Friday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, with both men succumbing to their wounds after being shot by Israeli troops during protests along the Gaza fence, according to health officials.

In the run-up to that election, Egypt succeeded in mediating an agreement between Israel and Hamas, the militant group that runs Gaza, following an exchange of rockets and airstrikes in March.

The agreement, though never publicly acknowledged by Israel, included measures aimed at loosening the restrictions imposed on Gaza's 2 million inhabitants.

Recent pronouncements by Hamas officials have suggested growing frustration that Israel has not moved fast enough to fulfill its pledges, including allowing the transfer of millions of dollars of extra funding from Qatar.

The upturn in violence comes as Israel is preparing to mark Independence Day next week and host the Eurovision Song Contest the following week.

On Saturday evening, the UN's Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, announcing renewed efforts with Egypt to restore calm, called on all parties to immediately de-escalate or risk a conflict with "grave consequences for all." </s> ASHKELON, Israel — Loren Amar was watching TV with her father around midnight when an air-raid siren warning of incoming rocket fire blared through their working-class neighborhood in southern Israel.

Their old apartment had no in-house shelter, so they huddled in the stairway just before a rocket from Gaza slammed into the building next-door, sending shrapnel and debris flying into their bedrooms — and the 29-year-old Amar to the hospital with shock symptoms.

"The walls shook and the hallway filled with white smoke. It felt like an earthquake," she recalled Tuesday, a hospital identity tag still wrapped around her wrist. "The electricity went out and we didn't know whether to go up or down. I was hysterical."

It was the first lethal rocket attack from Gaza in years, and yet the only fatality was a Palestinian laborer from the West Bank. Two Israeli women were critically wounded.

In just 24 hours, Gaza militants fired more than 450 rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel, the most serious escalation since a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas in 2014. Israel responded with a wave of airstrikes it said targeted militants.

Residents angrily demanded the government restore calm for good, even if that means another war. Yet many people wearily expressed a sense of helplessness, as successive governments fail to come up with an effective policy to bring quiet to the Israel-Gaza frontier.

Hamas militants seized Gaza in 2007, triggering an Israeli-Egyptian border blockade that has choked the territory of 2 million people. Israel refuses to lift the blockade unless Hamas disarms, a demand the militants refuse. The volatile standoff has produced repeated rounds of violence, including indiscriminate Gaza rocket fire at Israeli border towns.

Word late Tuesday that Gaza militants agreed to a cease-fire was unlikely to sway people's minds that there is no long-term solution to the Gaza conundrum.

"I don't know how you stop this thing. Nothing helps. Whatever you do it always comes back," said Shlomit Hayat, 38.

She noted that the deadly violence came just days after Israel allowed Qatar to deliver $15 million in cash to Gaza to alleviate its economic hardship and after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he'd do everything he can to prevent an "unnecessary" war.

The latest fighting was triggered by a botched Israeli raid into Gaza on Sunday that set off clashes resulting in the deaths of seven Palestinian militants, including a local Hamas commander, and a senior Israeli military officer. Palestinian militant groups said the rocket barrage was a message to Israel that such incursions have a cost.

Gazans have similar fears when fighting breaks out. While Israel says it has confined its airstrikes to military targets, hundreds of Palestinian civilians have been killed in the three previous wars. For many in Gaza, the latest outbreak of fighting brought back fears that no place is truly safe in the densely populated territory.

On Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike destroyed a six-story residential building in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City that housed a kindergarten on its ground floor. Israel said the building was used by Hamas for military purposes — a charge denied by residents.

"All the people here are civilians, children and families," said Mamdouh al-Shurafa, a building resident. "When we are bombed in the middle of the city, where can we go?"

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the group seized Gaza from the internationally-backed Palestinian Authority in 2007. In the most recent war, over 2,200 Palestinians were killed, more than half of them civilians, and tens of thousands were left homeless. Seventy-three people, most of them soldiers, were killed on the Israeli side.

Israel's Iron Dome rocket-defense system and advanced warning networks have provided a large degree of protection from the rockets, which killed some 30 civilians in the decade prior to the 2014 war. Casualties have dropped considerably since then and a proliferation of rocket-proof safe rooms in newer buildings has allowed many Israelis to feel much safer in their own homes.

But this week's onslaught showed the system is not foolproof. The overnight rocket that slipped through penetrated the roof of a four-story apartment building, leaving the entire structure pockmarked, its windows blown out and the balcony shutters hanging limply.

Emergency forces evacuated a critically wounded woman to hospital. Only an hour later, a neighbor sifting through the rubble discovered the other wounded woman and the dead man. "I heard a murmur and then I saw a hand reach out," said Shlomi Lankry.

Relatives in the West Bank town of Halhoul identified the dead man as 48-year-old Mahmoud Abu Asbeh. A married father of six, he would typically sleep in Ashkelon during the week and return home for weekends.

"The rockets don't have eyes to see, they hit randomly, and this happened randomly, it was unintentional," said his father, Abdel Hamid Abu Asbeh. "Last night he told me the rockets are falling like rain. He said: 'May God protect us,' as if he expected something."

Those around the building were at a loss to describe the shock of a rocket landing in the heart of their neighborhood.

"It's like Russian Roulette," said Elie Mozes, 57. "It just comes out of nowhere."

Back at home after her stint in the hospital, Amar said she was at a loss to prescribe a solution. With glass strewn across her bed and holes blown through her hanging laundry, she said all she knew was that something had to be done.

"If anyone still lives in a fairytale that there will be peace here they need to snap out of it," she said. </s> GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he ordered the military to continue “massive strikes” against militants in Gaza as a surge in cross-border hostilities ran into a third day.

A rocket fired from Gaza killed an Israeli civilian on Sunday and two Palestinian gunmen were killed in an Israeli strike, with no sign of any impending ceasefire in the most serious border flare-up since November.

Israel’s military said more than 450 rockets, many of them intercepted by its Iron Dome anti-missile system, have been fired at southern Israeli cities and villages since Friday, and it attacked some 220 targets belonging to Gaza militant groups.

Police said one of the rockets hit a house in the city of Ashkelon, killing a 58-year-old man. That marked the first Israeli civilian fatality in a rocket strike from Gaza since a 2014 war between Israel and militants in the Hamas-run enclave.

“This morning I instructed the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) to continue with massive strikes against terrorists in the Gaza Strip and I also instructed that forces around the Gaza Strip be stepped up with tank, artillery and infantry forces,” Netanyahu, who doubles as Israeli defence minister, said in a statement.
A rocket fired from Gaza strikes an apartment building in Ashkelon, killing a man and injuring two others. The victim was a middle aged Palestinian illegal immigrant from Hebron. This is the first person killed on Israeli soil due to Palestinian rocket fire since 2014.