Israeli jets pounded targets in the Gaza Strip early Thursday, reportedly killing three people after Palestinian militants fired a barrage of rockets into Israel.
The Gaza Health Ministry said a pregnant woman, her 18-month-old child and a Hamas militant were killed. The Palestinian news agency WAFA cited health officials as confirming that a dozen other Palestinians were wounded in the airstrikes.
The Israeli attacks came in apparent retaliation for the launching of about 150 rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel, wounding 11 Israelis, according to Haaretz. The rockets landed in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, where nine residents were taken to the hospital, including a woman in serious condition, the newspaper reports.
Hamas claimed responsibility for the rocket attack and a tweet issued by a spokesman for the militant group, Abdullatif al-Kanoo, was translated by Al Jazeera as saying that the Palestinian resistance "is in self-defense and has a duty to respond to the aggression against our people."
"The escalation of the barbaric shelling of Gaza and the deliberate targeting of civilians [by Israel] is premeditated and the [Israeli] occupation will suffer the repercussions and pay a higher price for its crimes," he said, according to the news service.
Cue the usual suspects....