A barrage of around 50 rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza on Saturday, witnesses said, and the Israeli military said it responded with an air strike targeting “two rocket launchers” in the Palestinian enclave.

The army said Saturday that sirens warning of incoming projectiles sounded several times in southern Israel.

In response, Israeli aircraft targeted two launch sites in northern Gaza. Local media reported three Palestinian casualties.

The deadly flare-up between Israel and Gaza militants enters a second day, shattering a month-long Egyptian-mediated easing of hostilities.

On Friday, Israel said two soldiers were wounded by gunshots from the Hamas-controlled territory. No group claimed responsibility for the shooting.

Israeli aircraft carried out retaliatory strikes, killing two Hamas militants. Two other Palestinians were killed during the weekly protests along the Israel-Gaza perimeter fence.

Egypt has been trying to reach a long-term cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, who fought three wars the past decade. </s> "The United States strongly condemns the ongoing barrage of rocket attacks by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad from Gaza upon innocent civilians and their communities across Israel. We call on those responsible for the violence to cease this aggression immediately. We stand with Israel and fully support its right to self defence against these abhorrent attacks," Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement released late Saturday.

READ MORE: IDF Responds to Rockets Fired from Gaza, Says Hamas Headquarters Destroyed

Tensions in the Gaza Strip escalated early Saturday when Israeli military said they detected dozens of rockets fired from the area. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) responded by hitting Hamas and other targets.

Late Saturday, Israel said that at least 250 rockets were fired from Gaza over the past 24 hours. </s> Israeli warplanes struck dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip and three people were reported killed there, while Palestinian militants from the territory fired scores of rockets into Israel in a fierce burst of violence overnight and into Thursday morning.

The flare-up comes as Egypt is trying to broker a long-term cease-fire between the two sides. At least three Palestinians died — a pregnant woman, her 1-year-old daughter and a Hamas militant, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

On the Israeli side, at least seven people were wounded.

It was not clear if the escalation, the latest in a series of intense exchanges of fire in recent months, would derail the indirect negotiations between Israel and Gaza's Hamas militant rulers.

Air raid sirens signaling incoming rocket fire continued in southern Israel on Thursday morning, raising the likelihood of further Israeli reprisals.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza in 2007. Despite the animosity, the bitter enemies appear to be working through Egyptian mediators to avoid another war.

Hamas is demanding the lifting of an Israeli-Egyptian border blockade that has devastated Gaza's economy, while Israel wants an end to rocket fire, as well as recent border protests and launches of incendiary balloons, and the return of the remains of two dead soldiers and two live Israelis believed to be held by Hamas.

But the continued outbursts of fire have jeopardized those cease-fire efforts. On Tuesday, the Israeli military struck a Hamas military post in Gaza after it said militants fired on Israeli troops on the border. Hamas said two of its fighters were killed after taking part in a gunfire parade inside a militant camp.

The incident occurred while a group of senior Hamas leaders from abroad were visiting Gaza to discuss the ceases-fire efforts with local leaders.

A top Hamas official told The Associated Press that the group waited for the delegation to leave Gaza before responding with rocket fire late Wednesday.

The Israeli military said over 150 rockets and mortars were fired at Israel, and Israel carried out over 140 airstrikes targeting Hamas militant positions.

Gaza's Health Ministry identified those killed in the airstrikes from Wednesday to Thursday as Hamas fighter Ali Ghandour, 23-year-old Enas Khamash and her daughter Bayan. The ministry said the militant and the civilians were killed in separate incidents.

In southern Israel, two Thai laborers were among the seven wounded by rocket fire, and rockets damaged buildings in the cities of Sderot and Ashkelon. The military said it intercepted some 25 rockets, while most of the others landed in open areas. Israel said it launched airstrikes targeting rocket launchers, weapons stockpiles, tunnels and other Hamas infrastructure.

Israeli Cabinet minister for construction and housing, Yoav Galant, said that "whatever is needed to be done to defend our civilians and soldiers, will be done, no matter what would be the price in Gaza."

Conricus wouldn't comment on Israeli media reports of troops preparing for a possible ground operation, but said Israel "had ground troops that are ready to deploy. We are reinforcing the southern command and Gaza division."

On Wednesday, the Israeli military shelled the Palestinian territory after civilians working on the Gaza border fence came under fire. Hamas militants responded with a cross-border fusillade that sent Israelis scrambling for air raid shelters.

The Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was discussing classified negotiations, said that cease-fire talks were in their final stage but that disagreements remained. He said Hamas is demanding the complete lifting of the Israeli-Egyptian blockade, while Israel has offered only to ease the restrictions.

Tension along the Israel-Gaza border has escalated since late March, when Hamas launched what would become regular mass protests along Israel's perimeter fence with Gaza. The protests have been aimed in part at trying to break the blockade.

Over the past four months, 163 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, including at least 120 protesters, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and a local rights group. An Israeli soldier was killed by a Gaza sniper during this period.

Israel says it has been defending its sovereign border against infiltration attempts by Hamas. But it has come under heavy international criticism for its frequent use of force against unarmed protesters. </s> Israeli warplanes struck dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip and three people were reported killed there, while Palestinian militants from the territory fired scores of rockets into Israel in a fierce burst of violence overnight and into Thursday morning.

The flare-up comes as Egypt is trying to broker a long-term cease-fire between the two sides. At least three Palestinians died — a pregnant woman, her 1-year-old daughter and a Hamas militant, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

On the Israeli side, at least seven people were wounded.

It was not clear if the escalation, the latest in a series of intense exchanges of fire in recent months, would derail the indirect negotiations between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas militant rulers.

Air raid sirens signaling incoming rocket fire continued in southern Israel on Thursday morning, raising the likelihood of further Israeli reprisals.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza in 2007. Despite the animosity, the bitter enemies appear to be working through Egyptian mediators to avoid another war.

Hamas is demanding the lifting of an Israeli-Egyptian border blockade that has devastated Gaza’s economy, while Israel wants an end to rocket fire, as well as recent border protests and launches of incendiary balloons, and the return of the remains of two dead soldiers and two live Israelis believed to be held by Hamas.

But the continued outbursts of fire have jeopardized those cease-fire efforts. On Tuesday, the Israeli military struck a Hamas military post in Gaza after it said militants fired on Israeli troops on the border. Hamas said two of its fighters were killed after taking part in a gunfire parade inside a militant camp.

The incident occurred while a group of senior Hamas leaders from abroad were visiting Gaza to discuss the ceases-fire efforts with local leaders.

A top Hamas official told The Associated Press that the group waited for the delegation to leave Gaza before responding with rocket fire late Wednesday.

The Israeli military said over 150 rockets and mortars were fired at Israel, and Israel carried out over 140 airstrikes targeting Hamas militant positions.

Gaza’s Health Ministry identified those killed in the airstrikes from Wednesday to Thursday as Hamas fighter Ali Ghandour, 23-year-old Enas Khamas and her daughter Bayan. The ministry said the militant and the civilians were killed in separate incidents.

Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus insisted Israel only targeted Hamas military targets in the Gaza Strip.

In southern Israel, two Thai laborers were wounded by rocket fire, one severely, and rockets damaged buildings in the cities of Sderot and Ashkelon. The military said it intercepted some 25 rockets, while most of the others landed in open areas. Israel said it launched airstrikes targeting rocket launchers, weapons stockpiles, tunnels and other Hamas infrastructure.

Conricus wouldn’t comment on Israeli media reports of troops preparing for a possible ground operation, but said Israel “had ground troops that are ready to deploy. We are reinforcing the southern command and Gaza division.”

On Wednesday, the Israeli military shelled the Palestinian territory after civilians working on the Gaza border fence came under fire. Hamas militants responded with a cross-border fusillade that sent Israelis scrambling for air raid shelters.

The Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was discussing classified negotiations, said that cease-fire talks were in their final stage but that disagreements remained. He said Hamas is demanding the complete lifting of the Israeli-Egyptian blockade, while Israel has offered only to ease the restrictions.

Tensions along the Israel-Gaza border have escalated since late March, when Hamas launched what would become regular mass protests along Israel’s perimeter fence with Gaza. The protests have been aimed in part at trying to break the blockade.

Over the past four months, 163 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, including at least 120 protesters, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and a local rights group. An Israeli soldier was killed by a Gaza sniper during this period.

Israel says it has been defending its sovereign border against infiltration attempts by Hamas. But it has come under heavy international criticism for its frequent use of force against unarmed protesters. </s> GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip on Monday was one of the most powerful launched ever by Gaza militants, flying nearly 120 kilometers (70 miles) before it slammed into a house in central Israel, wounding seven people.

Over more than a decade, the Islamic militant Hamas group has built up a large arsenal of rockets and missiles. It started with crude short-range projectiles and now possesses rockets that can strike virtually anywhere in Israel.

Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, prompting Israel and Egypt to impose a blockade on the territory, largely to prevent the militants from amassing more weapons. But the blockade and three wars with Israel — the most recent in 2014 — failed to prevent Hamas from expanding its arsenal.

A network of smuggling tunnels along the Egyptian border is believed to have helped Hamas bring in advanced weapons and raw materials, though Egypt shuttered most of the tunnels around 2013.

In 2018, Gaza's Hamas chief Yehiya Sinwar boasted that the group had not only replenished the rockets it fired during the 50-day war in 2014, but had many more at its disposal. He said that what had been fired in 50 days "would be fired within five minutes" of any future Israeli offensive.

Monday's rocket strike was the furthest a Gaza rocket has landed since 2014, when Hamas struck the northern Israeli city of Haifa, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) away.

Gabi Siboni, an Israeli military analyst, said Hamas "has a variety of advanced, precise, and effective weaponry." He said this includes guided anti-tank missiles and shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles, both produced by Russia, as well as some drones.

—Qassams: In 2001, a year after the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising against Israel, Hamas first fired a cross-border rocket toward Israel, calling it "Qassam" after the group's military wing. The homemade rockets, aimed at Israeli border towns, had an irregular trajectory and sometimes landed inside Gaza.

—R-160: Hamas calls this its longest-range home-grown rocket. It was first fired in the 2014 war and at one point hit Haifa. The "R'' in the name refers to Abdel-Aziz Rantissi, a senior Hamas official who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2004. The number refers to the range, in kilometers.

—J-80: This rocket, also produced locally, is named after Hamas military wing commander Ahmed Jabari, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his car in 2012, setting off an eight-day war. Israel reportedly believes the rocket that hit central Israel on Monday was this model and blamed Hamas. The group has not claimed responsibility.

—M-75: Hamas unveiled this rocket in 2014, claiming it was homemade. But experts believe it is a version of the Iranian Fajr 5 rocket, which Iran acquired in the 1990s and is based on Chinese technology.

—Hamas also possess a variety of Russian Grad rockets. These projectiles, with a range of about 20 kilometers (12 miles), are believed to have been delivered via Iran.

In recent years, Hamas has built a sophisticated network of tunnels. These include attack tunnels that run under the Gaza-Israel perimeter fence, for use by assailants to infiltrate Israel. Defensive tunnels, located away from the border, are used to store weapons and serve as hideouts.

Hamas first used tunnels in a 2006 cross-border attack in which it killed two Israeli soldiers and captured a third. The soldier, Gilad Shalit, was swapped for more than 1,000 prisoners in 2011.

Hamas also used the tunnels in the 2014 war, killing five soldiers in one cross-border raid.

During the fighting, Israel said it discovered and destroyed 32 tunnels. Since then, it says it has discovered and destroyed several additional tunnels.

To combat the tunnel threat, Israel has begun building an underground barrier running the length of the Gaza Strip, and this year it said it was reinforcing the Gaza fence with 20-foot-high galvanized steel.

—Mortars. Hamas has fired hundreds of mortars at short-range targets just across the border. The mortars are believed to have been smuggled from Libya through Egypt.

— Laser-guided anti-tank missiles made by Russia. Last November, Hamas fired such a missile, known as Kornet, at a bus from which Israeli soldiers had just exited. One soldier was seriously wounded. In a 2006 war, the Lebanese Hezbollah militia killed dozens of Israeli tank soldiers using these weapons.

—Drones: Hamas has developed an early-stage drone program, displaying images of Israeli fields purportedly filmed by these aircraft. It's not known whether they have been used for attacks. </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> JERUSALEM (JTA) — Code Red rocket warning sirens sounded throughout southern Israeli communities near the border with Gaza as more than a dozen rockets were launched from the coastal strip at civilian communities.

The rockets were fired between 1:45 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Wednesday morning, sending thousands of civilian residents of southern Israel to bomb shelters and safe rooms. At least three were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system.

Elementary schools and kindergartens, which are in regular session though the end of the month, opened as usual Wednesday morning.

The rockets came hours after the Israeli military fired on a vehicle belonging to a Hamas operative heavily involved in launching arson kites and balloons from the Gaza Strip into Israel as well as two Hamas observation posts in northern Gaza. The attacks were in response to repeated arson attacks from Gaza, according to the IDF. Several fires were sparked in southern Israeli communities on Tuesday due to the incendiary balloons.

“The Hamas terror organization will bear the consequences for facilitating terror and instability,” the IDF said following the rocket attacks.

The IDF has begun to fire warning shots at Gazan Palestinian groups preparing to launch burning kites and balloons and to retaliate for the arson attacks with air strikes on Hamas targets. Gazan Palestinian groups have retaliated for the air strikes with early morning rocket attacks on several occasions in recent days. </s> The Palestinian group Islamic Jihad says it has agreed to stop firing rockets towards Israel after talks with an Egyptian delegation.

The announcement on Saturday came hours after Israel launched air raids hitting more than 80 locations in the besieged Gaza Strip after it said rockets were fired from there into southern Israel.

"We announce a ceasefire with Israel after Egyptian contacts with us," Dawoud Shihab, Islamic Jihad spokesperson, told Anadolu Agency.

He added the group "will be committed to the deal as long as Israel is committed to".

Khaled al-Batsh, a top official of the group, told The Associated Press news agency on Saturday that it was grateful to Egypt for brokering the agreement "to restore calm to the Gaza Strip".

"The Egyptians thankfully intervened and exerted huge efforts between the resistance [factions] in Gaza and the Zionist [Israeli] occupation," Batsh said.

"The Egyptian efforts led to understandings to restore calm to the Gaza Strip. We appreciate the Egyptian endeavour and hope for all kinds of [Israeli] aggression to stop."

Israel did not immediately respond, and past ceasefires in the conflict have not always stuck.

Egyptian mediators have been attempting to negotiate a truce between Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Israel.

The Islamic Jihad movement, which was founded in the late 1970s, is much smaller than Hamas and maintains that Palestine, with its borders marked from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean sea, is Islamic land and it is religiously prohibited to compromise or surrender any of it.

Its military wing, the Al-Quds Brigades, became active during the 1987 Intifada by launching operations against Israeli military and non-military targets.

Earlier on Saturday, an Israeli military spokesperson said 34 rockets had been fired at Israel throughout the night.

Israel's Iron Dome rocket-defence system reportedly intercepted 13 rockets, two of which landed in Gaza and the remainder fell in open spaces in southern Israel.

In response, the Israeli military said it struck about 80 sites across Gaza by early Saturday morning, including a security headquarters building.

Among the targets was Hamas' new headquarters for the General Security Services, the military said.

Health officials in Gaza said nine Palestinians were wounded in one of the Israeli attacks and a hospital was badly damaged.

No Israelis were reported injured from the rockets.

Hamas has disavowed the recent rocket attacks and blamed fringe groups bent on sabotaging United Nations and Egyptian efforts to broker a long-term truce.

But Israel has said it holds Hamas responsible for any rocket fire regardless of who launched it.

Hamas has been pushing for the end of an 11-year siege on Gaza, imposed by Israel and Egypt, that has trapped more than two million Palestinians, and left residents with limited access to water and electricity. </s> Gaza-based Hamas terrorists sent 300 rockets into Israel Monday, bringing about a major Israeli Defense Forces strike in Gaza.

Hamas “has crossed a red line,” said Israeli Maj. Gen. Kamil Abu Rukun, who said Israel would “continue to respond with an iron fist against all terrorist activity or rocket fire.”

Israel said it intercepted 70 of the rockets.

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The full extent of Israeli casualties was unclear early Tuesday. The Jerusalem Post indicated in a running summary of the attacks and the Israeli response that at least one man was killed and close to 100 were wounded, many from the community of Ashkelon.

Other accounts put the overall total number of injured between 10 and 20.

In what appeared to be a separate attack, a mortar shell hit a bus in which Israel Defense Force personnel had been riding. Six people were injured, including a 19-year-old who was listed in critical condition, Fox News reported.

The latest round of violence was triggered Sunday when a firefight broke out in Gaza between Israeli soldiers and Hamas fighters.

“The aim of the operation was not to abduct or to kill a Hamas operative,” said IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus. He said that once the Israeli force met trouble, it “acted swiftly, professionally, was able to defend itself, exfiltrate in a very professional manner, making sure that all soldiers got back to Israel, that none were left behind.”

Hamas, however, claimed that Israeli undercover troops slipped two miles into Gaza killed and killed Nour el-Deen Baraka, a commander of the group’s military wing. Five Hamas soldiers and one Israeli solder were killed Sunday.

Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks, which began at sunset local time on Monday.

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In retaliation, Israel hit a wide range of targets, including the Al-Aqsa TV station. The BBC reported that three Palestinians were killed.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum called the attack on the station an act of “barbaric aggression,” according to The New York Times.

“It contributes to Hamas’ military actions, including by providing operational messaging to militants, directing and explicitly calling for terror activities against Israel, and providing guidance on how to carry out such terror activities,” the IDF said in a statement.

Israeli Cabinet minister Michael Oren said Israel “will do whatever it takes” to defend itself, according to U.S. News and World Report.

“We expect the world to stand with us,” he said.

The EU’s ambassador to Israel, Emanuele Giaufret, begged for an end to “indiscriminate” rocket fire targeting civilians.

“Everyone must step back from the brink,” he said.

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, called for the world body to condemn Hamas.

“After a day of rocket barrages, there is no room for any other definition of Hamas except that of terrorist organization. To the world it presents its civilians as victims, but then uses them as human shields,” Danon wrote.

“Israel cooperated with all international bodies, including the UN, but the aggressive escalation from Gaza indicates that there are elements pushing for another round of violence that will cause destruction and losses within the Gaza Strip,” he wrote.

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Israel and Hamas exchange missile fire with 300 rockets being launched from Gaza within the span of three hours.