GAZA CITY: Israeli warplanes and tanks hammered Gaza on Friday and early Saturday, killing 11 people in the deadliest day of violence in the strip since the end of the Gaza war two years ago.
On the other incident two Israeli missiles struck a vehicle traveling near Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip early on Saturday. Hamas says that Tayser Abu Snima and two of his assistants were killed in the blast.
The strike was one of several against Hamas targets after midnight. It followed the bloodiest day in Gaza in nearly two years.
Nine Palestinians were killed in a series of Israeli air raids on the Gaza Strip on Friday, Hamas officials said, a day after an anti-tank shell fired from the salient hit an Israeli school bus, seriously injuring a teenager.
Five of the dead were civilians, bringing to 15 the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli air and ground raids since Thursday.
Nearly 40 people were injured in the raids on the southern Gaza Strip and near Gaza City.
Israel has claimed that armed groups fired dozens of rockets and mortars at Israel on Friday and around 50 the day before. Israel has also claimed that his anti-missile system "Iron Dome" has downed four rockets that were fired at the Israeli city of Ashkelon, about 14 kilometres north of the Strip.
Two fighters were killed in a morning raid on Khan Younis. Around the same time Israeli forces attacked Rafah, on the border between Gaza and the Sinai peninsula, Hamas said.
Around 15 rockets were fired into Israel on Friday, police said, but no casualties were reported.
Palestinian have rejected the claims of Israel and said they hoped to avoid further violence, but an Israeli cabinet minister said the strikes would continue.
"We are acting as we see fit so that this type of fire will not continue, and so that the people behind the fire will regret it,'' Matan Vilnai, in charge of the home front, told Army Radio.
An Al Jazeera correspondent, said Hamas "really doesn't want to risk an escalation of violence with Israel, and that is very clear simply by the fact they said they would stick to the ceasefire".
She said only one faction in Gaza had said it would not stick to the ceasefire. "It's one thing for factions and groups to say that they will abide by the ceasefire, but it's another thing to see them actually stick to it," she said.
The Fresh escalation of violence started on Israeli claim that on Thursday a bus carrying was attacked by Gaza fighters with an anti-tank rocket, badly wounding the driver and a 16-year-old boy.
A senior Hamas official told that "The Israelis are trying to impose a new formula in Gaza. They are trying to prevent us from taking any benefits in the region.
"They are trying to escalate the situation ... The coming few days will carry a lot of developments if things continue like this."
Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, has urged western powers to intervene and called on Palestinians "not to give Israel an excuse to hit Gaza".
Israel has been using its latest cutting-edge missile-defense system for the first time since Thursday. .
