Israel strikes Gaza militants as cross-border violence persists

The Israeli military said aircraft targeted a site used by militants in the northern Gaza Strip early Thursday as retaliation for dozens of rockets fired from the coastal enclave in recent days. Palestinian officials identified the site as a training facility operated by Izz al-Din al-Qassam, the military wing of Islamist group Hamas, which controls the territory since 2007, and said there were no injuries, local media reported. The strike was the latest in a string of similar operations carried out by the Israel Air Force since a new round of violence flared up earlier in the week, leading senior military officials here to weigh the option of a large-scale invasion of Gaza to quell incessant rocket attacks. On Wednesday, Gaza militants fired three Grad-type rockets at the southern Israeli towns of Sderot and Netivot. The projectiles exploded in open areas, with no casualties or damage reported. The rockets came on the heels of another air strike launched overnight Tuesday on an arms smuggling tunnel in northern Gaza, in which eight Palestinian bystanders were injured. On Monday, Israeli aircraft and tanks struck targets in Gaza in response to some 55 rockets and mortar shells fired at farming communities in the Western Negev that forced thousands of their residents to take cover in bomb shelters. Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the barrage, saying it came in response to an Israeli air strike in Rafah on Sunday night, in which two militants were wounded. The army said that Talat Jarbi and Abdullah Makawi, both in their early twenties and members of a group affiliated with world Jihad, were set to launch a large terror attack against Israelis from the Egyptian Sinai. On Thursday, the army reported that more than 500 rockets hit Israel since the beginning of 2012, 40 of them in October alone. "The Israel Defense Forces will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli civilians," the statement said, adding that Hamas is "solely responsible" for all attacks launched from Gaza.