Gaza toll rises after air strikes

A 155mm mobile cannon (foreground) is seen after it was transported to an area just outside the northern Gaza Strip. Two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip targeted Tel Aviv on Thursday in the first attack on Israel's commercial capital in 20 years, raising the stakes in a showdown between Israel and the Palestinians.

A 155mm mobile cannon (foreground) is seen after it was transported to an area just outside the northern Gaza Strip. Two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip targeted Tel Aviv on Thursday in the first attack on Israel's commercial capital in 20 years, raising the stakes in a showdown between Israel and the Palestinians.

Published Nov 15, 2012

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Gaza City - The death toll in over 24 hours of Israeli air strikes on Gaza rose to 16 on Thursday, a Hamas spokesperson said as militants fired more than 380 rockets at Israel, killing three people.

Around 150 Gazans have been injured in the relentless Israeli campaign of air strikes, which continued into Thursday evening, hitting multiple sites around Gaza City and in the north of the territory.

“A 10-month-old girl was martyred this evening at Shifa hospital. She died of wounds from Israeli missile shrapnel after a strike in the Zeitun neighbourhood,” Hamas emergency services spokesperson Adham Abu Selmiya told reporters.

“There are now 16 martyrs, including four children... and 150 people injured,” he added.

Earlier, Hamas health ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said a strike in the northern town of Beit Lahiya had killed a 60-year-old man.

And emergency services personnel said a child had died of wounds he sustained in a strike on Khan Yunis earlier on Thursday.

Since Israel's targeted killing of the Hamas military chief on Wednesday afternoon, Gaza rockets have killed three Israelis and injured 19, three of them soldiers, police and medics said.

Thursday's rocket strike on the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Malachi hit a house, killing two men and a woman, police said.

A spokesperson said the Israeli military had hit “around 225 targets” in Gaza since it launched its assault with the killing of Hamas military chief Ahmed Jaabari and his bodyguard in an air strike on Gaza City on Wednesday.

Over the same period, 274 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel, while 112 have been intercepted by the Iron Dome defence system, the military said. - Sapa-AFP

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