One Person Killed in Rehovot, Israel Kills Two Top Leaders of the Palestinian Gaza Strip Rocket Force

Israel's Iron Dome illustration fends off rocket attacks. (Wikimedia Commons/Israel Defense Forces)

JAKARTA - Israel killed the head of the Islamic Jihad rocket force and his deputy, suppressing an operation that has killed 30 people in Gaza, including women and children, while a Palestinian cross-border rocket attack caused the first fatality in Israel on Thursday.

Amid Egypt's mediation efforts, neither side seems ready to quell the worst turmoil since August, which is now entering its third day.

"We are at the peak of the campaign, both offensive and defensive," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video recorded statement issued during a visit to an air base.

"Whoever comes to harm us, his blood will be shed," he said.

The deaths of Ali Ghali and Ahmed Abu Daqqa add to the number of senior Iranian-sponsored Islamic Jihad figures killed since Israel began pounding Gaza on Tuesday.

Two gunmen from the splinter group were killed in separate attacks on Thursday. The identities of the two people who died elsewhere were not immediately clear. Four women and six children also died.

But Islamic Jihad, the second largest armed group in Gaza after the ruling Hamas group, has continued to fire rockets.

"We will not back down and the killing will only make us stronger. Our revenge continues," the organization said in a communiqué.

Hundreds of rockets launched have set off sirens as far north as Tel Aviv. About 1.5 million Israelis were ordered to flee to shelters, said military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.

Meanwhile the Iron Dome and David's Sling interceptors had shot down 96 percent of the rockets fired, according to the military. However, one rocket hit a residential building in Rehovot on Thursday. Medics said an elderly man was killed, the first victim killed in Israel in the latest fighting and five others were injured.

As shelling continues in Gaza, the military says it has arrested 25 people in the occupied West Bank with links to Islamic Jihad. In the West Bank city of Tulkarm, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli forces shot dead a 66-year-old man. The military said troops returned fire after one of them was shot and wounded by gunmen.

After more than a year of Israeli-Palestinian violence that has killed more than 140 Palestinians and at least 19 Israelis and foreigners since January, the latest escalation sparked international calls for a ceasefire.

But Cairo, which hosted senior Islamic Jihad official Mohammad al-Hindi for the talks, was cautious about the prospects.

"Egypt's efforts to calm the situation and resume the political process have not borne fruit," Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told reporters.

Meeting his Jordanian, French, and German counterparts in Berlin, Shoukry urged "peace sponsoring countries to step in and stop the attacks", saying Israel must "stop unilateral actions aimed at destroying the future Palestinian state".