GAZA CITY — Israel on Tuesday carried out more airstrikes against Palestinian rocket squads based in the Gaza Strip, killing at least six more militants a day after slaying Islamic Jihad’s military chief.
Israeli air operations have killed at least 11 militants since Monday evening. Most belonged to Islamic Jihad, which has claimed responsibility for dozens of cross-border rocket attacks into southern Israel in recent months.
The group vowed to avenge the death Monday night of Majid al-Harazin, the head of Islamic Jihad’s military arm in the Gaza Strip. Mourners at his funeral in Gaza City on Tuesday fired shots into the air and shouted calls for vengeance.
But Israeli officials said they would continue targeting Gaza-based Palestinian fighters, especially ranking members, in an effort to quell daily salvos of crude Kassam rockets and mortars that have terrified residents in Israeli border towns such as Sderot. Gaza militants have fired more than 2,000 rockets and mortars at Israel since January, most of them since Hamas took power.
Despite the intensified air campaign, Palestinian militants managed to lob several more projectiles at southern Israel on Tuesday, causing damage to a chicken coop at a kibbutz. No injuries were reported.
Four Islamic Jihad militants died early Tuesday during an Israeli missile strike in the northern Gaza Strip, an area frequently used as a launch pad for rockets aimed at Sderot.
Two Hamas members died later in a similar strike on a Hamas-run police station in the town of Rafah, at the southern end of the Gaza Strip.
