Israeli air strike kills Gaza militant, breaks truce

June 22, 2012

The daughter of Thair Al-Baik, a Palestinian militant from the Al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, mourns during her father's funeral in Jabalya June 21, 2012. — Reuters picGAZA, June 22 — An Israeli air strike killed a Palestinian militant and wounded another in the Gaza Strip today, Israel and Hamas medical officials said, two days after an Egyptian-brokered truce had calmed an outbreak of cross-border violence.

The strike in central Gaza followed the firing of two rockets at Israel earlier in the day. There were no reported casualties in those incidents.

An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed there was an air strike after a Hamas medical official in Gaza said a militant had been killed and another wounded in an Israeli strike at al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

The violence punctured a lull in cross-border attacks since Wednesday when Hamas militants in Gaza said they would abide by an Egyptian-brokered deal to withhold fire as long as Israel also stopped shooting.

The militant killed today was the ninth person in Gaza killed by Israeli air strikes since Monday, including a 14-year-old boy. Israel launched these attacks after a cross-border attack from Egyptian Sinai that killed an Israeli man.

Israel responded to the border penetration on Monday by killing two of the attackers, then attacked militant targets in Gaza including some it blamed for the incident along the Egyptian frontier and others it said fired rockets.

The Israeli military said more than 130 rockets and mortars fired from Gaza have struck Israeli towns since Monday, some of them launched after the truce was called. — Reuters