RAMALLAH: Three Israelis died when a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit their home in Kiryat Malakhi around 9:00 am on Thursday morning. Palestinian militants in Gaza have fired over 100 rockets on southern Israel since early Wednesday evening when Israel assassinated Ahmad Jabari, the military chief of Hamas's armed wing. Israeli forces struck Jabari's car in a targeted assassination, also killing one passenger. An additional 20 strikes across Gaza killed another seven Palestinians, including one three-year-old child. The Palestinian death toll reached 11 overnight, Al-Jazeera reports, and the number of injured exceed 100. The 52-year-old Jabari had a long career with Hamas, but he is most widely known as the mastermind behind the 2005 kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. During Shalit's five year captivity, Jabari oversaw all negotiations regarding his release, which eventually resulted in the release of over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in October 2011. The strike on Jabari came despite that armed Palestinian factions agreed to a ceasefire on Monday afternoon. The Palestinian Popular Resistance Committee (PRC) warned that Israel had “opened the gates of hell" with the assassination. Shortly after midnight on Thursday morning the Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, tweeted that it successfully fired rockets on Tel Aviv, Israel's largest city and cultural capital. The IDF Spokesperson quickly replied, dismissing the claim as propaganda. Early Thursday morning Israeli planes dropped leaflets in Gaza, warning that Israeli soldiers will be entering the territory on foot and urging civilians to stay away from Hamas infrastructure. US President Barack Obama reassured Israel that it supported it's right to defend itself, various media sources report. The Israeli operation—called “Operation Pillar of Defense"—is the largest operation carried out since the 2008 Gaza War (known in Israel as Operation Cast Lead), a three-week conflict that resulted in thousands of casualties and injuries.
