Israel strengthened air assault against the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers on Saturday, hitting a mosque it said was hiding rockets and a disabled centre nearby, pushing death tolls in the five-day offensive to over 133.
On Saturday, two nephews of Hamas ex-PM Ismail Haniyeh were among those killed in the multiple strikes, BBC quoted Palestinian officials as saying.
The AFP reported on Saturday that two people had been killed in an explosion at a charitable association for the disabled in Beit Lahiya, three deaths in the eastern Tufah area of Gaza City, and three others killed in western Gaza City.
Three patients and a nurse were killed in the explosion on Saturday in Jabaliya, the sources told Al Jazeera. They were among a dozen people killed in overnight raids.
A mosque in al-Nusarirat, central Gaza, was also destroyed in the overnight raids, which Israel claimed had been storing weapons for Hamas.
While there have been no fatalities in Israel, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra said overnight attacks raised the death toll and wounded more than 930 people.
Since then, militants have fired approximately 520 mortar rounds and rockets that struck Israel, while another 140 rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defence system, an Israeli army statement said late Friday.
Israel is adamant it will continue its campaign, which is says is to stop Hamas missile attacks on Israel.
“No international pressure will prevent us acting with all our force against a terror organisation that is calling for our destruction. We will continue to forcefully attack anyone who is trying to hurt us. No terrorist target in Gaza is immune.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday.
Israel said on Saturday that 680 rockets had been fired from Gaza into Israel since Tuesday, injuring nine Israelis.
The army said they struck a total of 1,160 targets since the beginning of their operation.
Thousands of Israeli troops have massed along the border with Gaza amid warnings by Israel that it is prepared to launch a ground offensive.
On Friday in a statement from the Pentagon, Washington affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself, but defence secretary Chuck Hagel told Israeli defence minister Moshe Ya’alon he was concerned “about the risk of further escalation and emphasised the need for all sides to do everything they can to protect civilian lives and restore calm.”
It is the deadliest violence since November 2012, with a growing number of rockets fired at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and even as far north as Haifa.
A rocket seriously wounded one person and injured another seven Israelis when a fuel tanker was hit at a service station in Ashdod, 30 km (20 miles) north of Gaza. Palestinian militants warned international airlines they would fire rockets at Tel Aviv’s main airport.
Two soldiers were wounded along the border with Gaza when Palestinians fired an anti-tank missile.
And an elderly woman was injured when a rocket hit her home in the southern city of Beersheva.
Israel has authorised the call-up of 40,000 reservist troops, and threatened a ground operation to stamp out the rocket fire.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged the United Nations Security Council to order an immediate truce.
Israel’s military commander, Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz, said his forces were ready to act as needed - an indication of a readiness to send in tanks and other ground troops, as Israel last did for two weeks in early 2009.
“We are in the midst of an assault and we are prepared to expand it as much as is required, to wherever is required, with whatever force will be required and for as long as will be required,” Gantz told reporters.