JERUSALEM — Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers threatened to escalate fighting with Israel on Saturday after airstrikes killed several gunmen in the coastal territory, and Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel wounded one person and damaged an elementary school in the country’s south.
The two sides periodically clash, but this flare-up was the most serious in months. It started with an attack by a little-known al-Qaida-inspired Palestinian militant group but has extended to drag in Hamas.
Hamas has largely stayed out of direct confrontation with Israel since a war more than three years ago, although other factions have launched cross-border attacks.
Gaza militants fired more than 30 rockets and mortar shells on Saturday alone, bringing the week’s rocket tally to more than 150, according to the Israeli military.
More than a million people in southern Israel live in range of the rockets and the Israeli military has advised the residents to make sure they can get to a bomb shelter quickly.
An Egyptian official in Ramallah said he is trying to broker a cease-fire between the Palestinian militant groups and Israel. He said he hoped calm would be restored by late Saturday. Egypt traditionally plays a mediating role between the sides.
Israel had no immediate official comment on the Egyptian efforts, but Hamas official Ayman Taha said his group would cease fire if Israel does. Soonafter Taher spoke, more rockets fired from Gaza exploded in southern Israel. It was not clear which group fired them.
A previous cease-fire reached late Tuesday did not hold long.
Military Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz convened “an urgent meeting” to discuss ways of dealing with a week of persistent Palestinian attacks, a spokesman said, while Defense Minister Ehud Barak consulted with senior officials Saturday evening.
There was no official statement afterward but the Israeli media reported that the decision was made “to meet fire with fire and quiet with quiet.”
Israel’s military said it carried out a series of airstrikes Saturday in response to the rockets. At least four militants were killed and more than 20 Palestinians, both combatants and civilians, were injured, according to Gaza health official Ashraf Al Kedra.
Hamas’ military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, vowed to escalate the fighting.
“If the last rounds were not enough to deliver the message ... we are ready to crush the enemy and to curb its arrogance and to respond to aggression in a strong way,” the group said in a statement released Saturday afternoon.
A few hours later, an Israeli airstrike killed a Gaza militant riding a scooter. The Popular Resistance Committees, a Hamas-allied militant group that often fires rockets at Israel, said he was a member. Witnesses said the force of the explosion caused a wall of a nearby building to collapse, injuring several people.
Front Section, Pages 9 on 06/24/2012