Israel continued a blistering assault early Thursday against Gaza, targeting what it described as 100 terror sites in response to ongoing rocket attacks by Palestinian militants, a move that has raised fears of a wider regional conflict.
The countering Israeli and Palestinian attacks prompted the U.N. Security Council to call an emergency closed door session late Wednesday in an attempt to de-escalate the crisis.
"In short, the message that must resonate from this meeting is 'the violence has to stop,'" Hardeep Singh Puri, president of the Security Council for the month of November, told reporters.
International diplomats hope to stave off a repeat of Israel's widely condemned 2008 strike that saw its forces go into Gaza after a similar spate of rocket attacks by Palestinian militants.
Even as the Security Council's member nations late Wednesday called for "maximum restraint so the situation does not deteriorate any further," Israeli and Palestinian officials reported countering airstrikes and assaults during the early morning hours.
At least three people were killed and four wounded when a rocket struck an apartment building in Kiryat Malakhi on Thursday, according to an Israeli police spokesman. Israeli forces, meanwhile, claimed to have killed seven militants in strikes on Thursday, while a Palestinian militant group put the number at three. Dozens of Palestinians, including children, have reportedly been wounded in the airstrikes, according to a Palestinian health official.
The Israel Defense Force said overnight it targeted "100 medium and long range rocket launch and infrastructure sites across the Gaza Strip," according to a statement released Thursday morning. That followed reports of more than 40 rockets fired from Gaza into Israel, according to CNN's Sara Sidner, who was reporting on the Israeli side of the Erez Crossing on Gaza's northern border.
At one point, 13 rockets were fired in quick succession from Gaza into Israel, "and you can see the trail of smoke," she said. That's in addition to the 35 rockets reportedly fired overnight at Israel, she said.
Sidner and a CNN film crew were forced to take cover after rockets struck near the border crossing. "Military here says it appears the crossing is being targeted," she said.
The latest round of countering strikes follows claims by Palestinian military groups of more than 75 strikes by Israeli warplanes and ships on Wednesday.
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