More than 1,000 rockets have been fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip since the beginning of escalation, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday.
"Some 850 rockets have crossed the Israeli border and 200 landed in the Gaza Strip," Israel’s Channel 7 reported citing the army spokesman.
Since Monday, five people have been killed in a rocket attack carried out from Gaza. Two women died on Tuesday in Ashkelon, and another woman in the evening in Rishon LeZion.
The Israel Defense Forces continued airstrikes on Gaza at night, ruining the houses of three top Hamas leaders. A total of 500 targets have been hit in Gaza.
The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the radical Hamas movement that controls the Gaza Strip, said early on Wednesday it had launched 100 rockets towards the Israeli city of Beersheba, Palestine’s Dunya Al Watan news portal reported.
The attack came in response to Israel’s air strikes on residential houses in the Gaza Strip, it said.
Israeli military chief Aviv Kochavi decided on Tuesday to extend Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip "with no time limit" amid the tensions with Hamas, a Palestinian movement that runs the strip.
The Israeli military issued a statement, saying that following a security assessment, Kochavi has ordered to beef up the forces around the Gaza Strip with more infantry and armored brigades, and continue striking the sites belonging to Hamas and other militant groups, Xinhua reported.
The number of people killed by Israeli missile strikes in the Gaza Strip since Monday has risen to 35, the Al Mamlaka TV channel reported on Wednesday citing the coastal enclave’s health ministry.
According to the ministry, Israeli strikes killed three Palestinians on Wednesday night. Earlier, 15 people were killed on Tuesday. The overall death toll since Monday stands at 35, including one woman and 12 children.
The number of injured Gaza residents has reached 233.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the "spiraling escalation" in Israel and Palestine must be brought to a rapid end.
Guterres "is deeply saddened to learn of increasingly large numbers of casualties, including children, from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, and of Israeli fatalities from rockets launched from Gaza," spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
"Israeli security forces must exercise maximum restraint and calibrate their use of force. The indiscriminate launching of rockets and mortars towards Israeli population centres is unacceptable," added Dujarric.
