Fars News Agency
Hostilities along the Gaza-Israel border escalated sharply over the weekend after Israeli strikes killing six Palestinians in Gaza and the Quds Brigades of the Islamic Jihad Movement responded with rocket salvos.
Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday that "the world must understand that Israel will not sit idly by while attempts are made to attack us. We are prepared to escalate our response".
The Quds Brigades of the Islamic Jihad Movement in a statement announced on Sunday that it has fired over 70 rockets and missiles at Zionist targets in response to Israel's numerous air raids and ground assaults on defenseless Palestinians.
Tens of missiles and 120-mm mortars have been fired at Israel's Karam Abu-Salem military base and Sedriot settlement, the Quds Brigades said on Sunday.
Meantime, the Israel radio announced that four Zionists were injured in missile attacks on Sedriot settlement on Sunday morning.
The attacks by the Quds Brigades are in response to Israel's frequent air raids on the defenseless Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as the Brigades had earlier vowed that it would give a crushing response to Israeli attacks.
On Saturday, Israeli tank shells killed at least five Palestinians and wounded 30 in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medics and local witnesses said.
The casualty toll in Saturday's violence was one of the highest in a single incident in Gaza in recent months. At least five of the injured, some of them children, are in critical condition, medical sources said.
Residents said a crowded mourning tent in the Shijaia neighborhood near Gaza City was full of people paying respects to a bereaved family man when a shell struck.
Ambulances, private vehicles and motorbikes rushed the wounded to hospital, eyewitnesses said. Among those killed was an 18-year-old man.
The Gaza Strip, a coastal territory crowded with more than 1.5 million people, many of them refugees, has been under siege by Israel since 2007.
The Israeli military frequently carries out air strikes and other attacks on the Gaza Strip, claiming the actions are being conducted for defensive purposes. However, disproportionate force is always used, in violation of international law, and civilians are often killed or injured.
Comment: One can easily imagine Netanyahu salivating at a new plan to re-increase any conflict, against a neighbor who essentially has bottle rockets to defend itself.
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