JERUSALEM - Israeli aircraft struck at Palestinian militants in Gaza on Saturday who responded with a volley of rockets that rained on southern Israeli towns, Israeli and Palestinian officials said. Palestinian officials said seven militants were killed while on the Israeli side five civilians were injured.
Exchanges of fire are common between southern Israel and the Gaza strip controlled by the militant Hamas group, but this is the worst one in months.
Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Adham Abu Salmia said that seven people were killed and 15 injured in two separate attacks on militant targets.
Israeli military released video footage taken from a military drone Saturday afternoon that shows Palestinians unloading rockets from a truck and preparing them for firing at Israel. The strike took place shortly afterward.
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Abu Salmia, the Gaza health official, said five people had been killed and 11 wounded in the first attack. Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Ahmed confirmed that one of its local field commanders, Ahmed Sheikh Khalil, was among the dead.
He said Khalil was one of the group's chief bomb makers. "Today it was a great loss for us in the Islamic Jihad," he said in a text message to reporters. "The size of our retaliation will equal our loss."
After the first airstrike, militants in Gaza fired over 20 rockets at southern Israel, Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. At least five Israeli civilians were injured when rockets hit residential areas, he said.