Israel maintains Gaza retaliation
Israeli aircraft and ground forces struck Gaza today, killing three Hamas militants and three civilians in a surge of fighting sparked by a Palestinian rocket attack on an Israeli school bus the day before.
Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers seemed on the brink of another round of intense violence, just over two years after persistent rocket fire from Gaza triggered a devastating Israeli military offensive in the territory.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attack on the school bus "crossed a line" and warned that "whoever tries to harm and murder children will pay with their life".
In Thursday's attack, Gaza militants hit an Israeli school bus near the border with a guided anti-tank missile, injuring the driver and badly wounding a 16-year-old boy. Most of the schoolchildren on the bus got off shortly before the attack.
By Friday afternoon, Israel's ongoing retaliation had killed 11 Gazans - six militants, a policeman and four civilians - and wounded 45. The dead today included three civilians killed by Israeli tank fire and two militants killed in an air strike, both near the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. Another militant was killed in an air strike in northern Gaza.
Officials later raised today's death toll in Gaza to nine - four Hamas militants and five civilians.
Hamas, which had largely held its fire since Israel's last major offensive, claimed responsibility for the bus attack.
It is unclear if Hamas was trying to provoke a new conflagration, if it was not fully in control of all of its fighters, or if it believes Israel would pull back before invading Gaza again. Israel was condemned internationally after the last incursion.
Hamas said the rocket attack was in retaliation for the killing of three fighters in an air strike earlier in the week. At around midnight on Thursday, with Gaza rocked by explosions, the organisation announced a ceasefire.
But the Israeli strikes continued, hitting Hamas facilities and smuggling tunnels. Electricity lines and transformers were damaged, causing power blackouts in some parts of the territory, according to Jamal Dardsawi, a spokesman for Gaza's Electric Distribution Company.
In Israel, studies at some schools near Gaza were cancelled today because of concerns for the students' safety.
Gaza militants fired 16 rockets and mortars at southern Israel today, causing no injuries, the Israeli military said. Israeli casualties have been kept low thanks to reinforced rooms and early warning systems.
Hamas claimed responsibility for some of the strikes, despite its earlier ceasefire declaration. A small PLO faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, also said it fired at Israel on Friday.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the bus attack and expressed concern over civilian casualties in Israel's strikes. He called for "de-escalation and calm to prevent any further bloodshed".
