At least four Palestinians have reportedly been wounded in Gaza after the Israeli Air Force conducted a series of retaliatory strikes against Hamas after the group allegedly fired a rocket into southern Israel.

The IDF has confirmed striking five Hamas positions in Gaza in retaliation for a rocket that was fired into the Sha’ar Hanegev region in Israel at around at 04:15 am local time Monday.

While the rocket did not cause any casualties, the spokesman for the Israeli Defense Force confirmed on Twitter that “the IDF holds Hamas accountable for all attacks from the Gaza Strip that threaten Israel and her citizens.”

The first strikes against Hamas positions were delivered just after 1:00 pm on Monday, the Ma'an News agency reported citing witnesses. At least two IDF bombs targeted a Hamas military site known as the Shuhada in the central Gaza Strip. Shortly after, Israeli planes struck a “monitoring post” east of Rafah city.

Israeli fighter jets then fired three missiles at the Hitteen post in Beit Lahiya. In a separate strike, IDF forces targeted the Nahda neighborhood of Rafah. The military strike concluded just before 2:00 pm when two artillery shells fired by the Israeli army hit an agricultural area east of Gaza City.

At least four people were injured in the raid, the Palestinian Health Ministry said according to Ma'an.

While Hamas did not take responsibility for the early Monday morning rocket attack into Israel, the movement, considered a terrorist entity by the Jewish state, did issue a statement following the IDF raid.

Hamas stressed that it holds Israel responsible for “this continuous dangerous escalation that targets the Palestinian resistance and the people of the Gaza Strip,” warning that “the ongoing targeting of resistance sites and the escalating situation in Gaza would neither be allowed nor accepted.”

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The Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said that while Israel does not want another escalation, Tel Aviv will not tolerate rockets strikes on Israeli soil.

“We will not get into a ping-pong situation of fire and counter-fire. I suggest Hamas take responsibility, impose order and calm down,” Lieberman said, adding that Israel has “no desire or intention to initiate any military move in the Gaza Strip.”

Gaza Strip, unlike the West Bank, has been ruled by Hamas - which refuses to recognize the State of Israel - since June 2007, after the group came to power in free elections a year earlier. Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since 2008.

In 2014, under Operation Protective Edge, the IDF launched a full range military assault on the Palestinians to diminish Hamas’ ability to launch rocket strikes and other terrorist attacks against Israel.

Despite the relative calm between Hamas and Israel in recent years, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades – Hamas' military wing which has alleged ties to Iran – continues to carry out rocket attacks in southern Israel. While most of the projectiles fall in deserted areas, Israel keeps on retaliating against the attacks, striking Hamas targets in air raids on Gaza.</s>* U.S. calls on Hamas acquaintances to press for ceasefire

GAZA, Nov 16 Egypt's prime minister prepared to visit the Gaza Strip on Friday in an unprecedented display of solidarity with Hamas militants embroiled in a new escalation of conflict with Israel that risks spiralling into all-out war.

Two rockets from Gaza crashed near Tel Aviv in the first such attack on Israel's commercial capital for 20 years. One fell into the Mediterranean Sea and the other in an uninhabited part of one of the Tel Aviv suburbs south of the city.

Two days of Israeli air strikes have killed 19 Palestinians, including seven militants and 12 civilians, among them six children and a pregnant woman. A Hamas rocket killed three Israelis in the town of Kiryat Malachi on Thursday morning.

The latest upsurge in a long-running conflict came on Wednesday when Israel killed Hamas's military mastermind, Ahmed Al-Jaabari, in a precision air strike on his car. Israel then began shelling the coastal enclave from land, air and sea.

Israel says its offensive responded to increasing missile salvoes from Gaza. Its bombing has not yet reached the saturation level seen before it last invaded Gaza in 2008, but Israeli officials have said a ground assault remains possible.

The Gaza conflagration has stoked the flames of a Middle East ablaze with two years of Arab popular revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread further afield.

Israeli warplanes bombed targets in and around Gaza City, rattling tall buildings. In a hint of escalation, the spokesman for Israel's military said it had received the green light to call in up to 30,000 reserve troops.

Egypt's new Islamist President, Mohamed Mursi, viewed by Hamas as a protector, led a chorus of denunciation of the Israeli strikes by allies of the Palestinians.

Mursi's prime minister, Hisham Kandil, is to visit Gaza on Friday with other Egyptian officials in a show of support for the enclave, an Egyptian cabinet official said. Israel promised that the delegation would come to no harm.

An Egyptian government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said officials accompanying Kandil would explore the possibility of brokering a ceasefire.

Mursi faces domestic pressure to act tough. But Egypt gets $1.3 billion a year in U.S. military aid and looks to Washington for help with its ailing economy, constraining Mursi despite his need to show Egyptians that his policies differ from those of his U.S.-backed predecessor Hosni Mubarak.

Air raid sirens sent residents running for shelter in Tel Aviv, a Mediterranean city that has not been hit by a rocket since the 1991 Gulf War when it was targeted by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

The Tel Aviv metropolitan area is home to more than 3 million people, more than 40 percent of Israel's population.

"This escalation will exact a price that the other side will have to pay," Barak said in a television broadcast shortly after the strike.

But an Israeli cabinet statement on Wednesday spoke only of "improving" national security - acknowledgement that the Jewish state has no illusions about crushing the militants once and for all.

Speaking at the same time in Gaza, Hamas leader Haniyeh urged Egypt to do more to help the Palestinians.

"We call upon the brothers in Egypt to take the measures that will deter this enemy," the Hamas prime minister said.

The resurgent conflict will be the biggest test yet of Mursi's commitment to Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, which the West views as the bedrock of Middle East peace.

Cairo recalled its ambassador from Israel on Wednesday. Israel's ambassador left Cairo on what was called a routine home visit; Israel said its embassy would remain open.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which brought Mursi to power in an election after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak, has called for a "Day of Rage" in Arab capitals on Friday. The Brotherhood is seen as the spiritual mentors of Hamas.

The Israeli army said 300 targets were hit in Gaza, including more than 130 militant rocket launchers. It said more than 270 rockets had struck Israel since the start of the operation, with its Iron Dome interceptor system shooting down more than 130 rockets bound for residential areas.

Expecting days or more of fighting and almost inevitable civilian casualties, Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets in Gaza advising residents to stay away from Hamas and other militants.

The United States has asked countries that have contact with Hamas to urge the Islamist movement to stop its recent rocket attacks from Gaza, a White House adviser said.

"We've ... urged those that have a degree of influence with Hamas, such as Turkey, and Egypt and some of our European partners, to use that influence to urge Hamas to de-escalate," Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, said in a conference call with reporters.

French President Francois Hollande began talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other world leaders in an attempt to avert an escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Jean-Francois Ayrault said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke to Netanyahu too, saying Hamas bore the principal responsibility for the crisis.

Israel's sworn enemy Iran, which supports and arms Hamas, condemned the Israeli offensive as "organised terrorism".

Lebanon's Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim militia Hezbollah, which has its own rockets aimed at the Jewish state, denounced strikes on Gaza as "criminal aggression", but held its fire.</s>The Israeli army targeted multiple sites across the besieged Gaza Strip with airstrikes and artillery fire midday Monday leaving at least four Palestinians injured, hours after an Israeli army spokesperson said that a rocket fired from Gaza landed in an open area in southern Israel that caused no injuries or damages.

Witnesses said Israeli fighter jets launched two missiles at a Hamas military site known as the Shuhada (“martyrs” in Arabic) post just after 1 p.m. in the central Gaza Strip, near the coast and west of Nuseirat refugee camp. Other local Palestinian news sites said five missiles were fired in the area.

Shortly after, an Israeli reconnaissance plane fired a missile at a monitoring post east of Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip, as Israeli fighter jets fired three missiles at the Hitteen post in Beit Lahiya in the northern region of the small Palestinian territory.

A separate strike in the Nahda neighborhood of Rafah left three Palestinians moderately injured , according to local sources. Gaza’s Ministry of Health later reported that a total of four people were injured in the strikes.

Before 2 p.m., two artillery shells fired by the Israeli army hit an agricultural area east of Gaza City, locals said.

Nearly two hours after the first airstrike was launched, the Israeli army confirmed in a statement that the air force hit five Hamas positions throughout the Gaza Strip, “ In response to a rocket fired from Gaza that hit Israeli territory last night,” adding that the army holds Hamas “accountable for all attacks from the Gaza Strip that threaten Israel and her citizens.”

However, Hamas has not claimed responsibility for any rocket attacks since a ceasefire was declared after Israel’s devastating war in Gaza in 2014, and the movement has attempted to clamp down on armed activity by smaller political groups that do launch rockets from the territory.

The Islamic Jihad also responded to Monday’s bombardment, with the official spokesman Dawood Shihab accusing the Israeli “occupation government” of stoking tensions in Gaza by “translating its threats against the Palestinian people into action.” He added that the Palestinian resistance movement has the right to respond to Israeli attacks if they continue. “The resistance will not accept this ongoing aggression, regardless of the cost and the challenges ahead.” The secular leftist PLO faction the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine also denounced the Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip and called on all Palestinian factions to close the ranks and present a unified response to “the occupation and its crimes.” The National Resistance Brigades, a military wing affiliated to another leftist group, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said that one of the group’s military posts was attacked in the northern Gaza Strip amid the airstrikes on Monday. Their statement affirmed the group’s commitment to resist the Israeli occupation “by all possible means,” and urged other factions to create a “joint operation room” to discuss how to respond to the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people. The cross-border fire came after the Israeli army targeted the besieged coastal enclave with multiple airstrikes in two instances this month, which the army said came in response to rocket fire from Gaza that caused no injuries to Israelis.

Three days earlier, a series of Israeli airstrikes from morning until evening left three Palestinians in the Gaza Strip injured.

Meanwhile, last week, two rockets launched from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula hit an open area in southern Israel, according to the Israeli army.

The Gaza-based al-Mezan Center for Human Rights expressed concern earlier this month in response to Israeli airstrikes that Israel could be leading up to a wide-scale military offensive.

The rights group called on the international community to “act promptly against Israel’s military escalation, to fulfill their obligations to protect civilians, and ensure respect for the rules of international law,” stressing that “acting before a full-scale military bombardment is launched is crucial to ensuring the protection of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.”

Gaza’s de facto leaders, of “preparing” for another war with Israel and have threatened retaliatory measures against the Gaza Strip as a whole, while Israeli authorities hold Hamas responsible for all attacks against Israeli targets coming from the Gaza Strip.</s>Israel launched air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, witnesses said, after a Palestinian sniper killed an Israeli civilian along the border.

There were no immediate reports of casualties after Israeli aircraft attacked two training camps run by the Hamas Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip.</s>JERUSALEM, Oct 24 Palestinians fired dozens of rockets into Israel from Gaza on Wednesday and an Israeli air strike killed a militant, a day after the Emir of Qatar made a rare visit to the enclave's Hamas leadership.

Hamas claimed responsibility for some of the rocket and mortar bomb attacks, prompting some Israelis to wonder whether it had been emboldened by the Qatari visit on Tuesday that broke the Islamist group's diplomatic isolation.

In recent months, Hamas has largely held its fire when other militant factions have launched cross-border rocket attacks, but the sudden upsurge in violence stoked fears that the hostilities could escalate further.

Hamas accused Israel of stepping up air strikes in the Gaza Strip, a move it said was meant to convey Israeli anger over Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani's visit, and pledged to "continue to hold a gun ... until Palestine is liberated".

Israel said it was "astounding" that Qatar, a U.S.-allied Gulf state, would take sides in the Palestinian dispute and endorse Hamas, branded by the West as a terrorist group. Hamas seized the Gaza Strip in 2007 from fighters loyal to the Fatah faction of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Some analysts saw the Qatari ruler's trip, the first by any national leader to Gaza since Hamas took over, as an attempt to build bridges between the group and the West and coax it into the peace camp amid Arab turmoil across the Middle East.

A Palestinian official said Egypt was trying to mediate a truce.

"The contacts Cairo made resulted in a verbal promise by Hamas to calm the situation down and Israel said it was monitoring calm on the ground and would refrain from attacks unless it was subject to rocket fire from Gaza," said the official, who is close to the talks.

Israeli officials had no immediate comment. Previous rounds of cross-border attacks have usually fizzled out in days, with both Israel and Hamas seemingly aware of the risks of ramping up the low-intensity conflict.

Israel's three-week-long invasion of the Gaza Strip, launched in 2008 with the declared aim of curbing rocket launches, drew international criticism over a heavy Palestinian casualty toll.

Though hostile to Israel, Hamas has mostly sought to avoid direct clashes as it shores up its rule in the face of more radical challengers and seeks potential allies abroad.

In a second day of violence, a Hamas militant was killed on Wednesday in an air strike, which Israel said was intended to stop rocket launches. On Tuesday, Israel killed three Hamas men, saying they had either launched attacks or were about to do so.

In southern Israel, three agricultural workers were wounded when a Palestinian rocket exploded near them.

An Israeli military spokeswoman, said 79 projectiles had been fired at Israel and that the Iron Dome system had intercepted eight of them. She said several homes had been damaged by Palestinian rockets.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is seeking a renewed mandate in Israel's Jan. 22 election, visited an Iron Dome anti-missile battery near the southern city of Ashkelon on Wednesday and threatened stronger Israeli military action in Gaza.

"We did not choose this escalation, nor did we initiate it, but if it continues, we are prepared for a much wider and deeper operation," he said, pledging to press on with "targeted attacks" against militants preparing to fire rockets.

Israel kept schools shut in communities near the fenced Gaza boundary and residents were urged to remain indoors.

Hamas has refused to renounce violence or recognise Israel's right to exist, and is ostracised by the Quartet of Middle East mediators comprising the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia.

However, Hamas has said it would accept a truce with Israel in return for a state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.</s>GAZA: Israeli aircraft carried out a series of strikes in Gaza on Monday, wounding two people, health officials and witnesses said, after a rocket fired from the Palestinian territory struck southern Israel.

Witnesses said the aircraft attacked four security positions belonging to Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip, and that the two people hurt were passers-by.

The Israeli military said that earlier a rocket fired from the enclave landed in an open area in southern Israel, causing no casualties. It had no immediate comment on the air strikes.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Palestinian rocket fire. Israel has said that Hamas bears overall responsibility for what happens in the territory.

The group has observed a de-facto ceasefire with Israel since a 2014 war but small armed cells of Jihadist Salafis have continued to occasionally launch rockets at Israel. When those attacks occur, Hamas usually orders its fighters to vacate potential targets for Israeli retaliation.</s>* Signs of preparations for possible Israeli invasion

GAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov 17 Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the prime minister's office, after Israel's cabinet authorised the mobilisation of up to 75,000 reservists, preparing for a possible ground invasion.

Israeli planes shattered the office building of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh - where he had met on Friday with the Egyptian prime minister - and struck the Interior Ministry.

Loud explosions regularly rocked the densely populated Palestinian territory, sending plumes of smoke billowing into the sky. The occasional hiss of outgoing rocket fire showed Islamist militants were pursuing their defiance of the assault.

Despite the violence, Tunisia's foreign minister arrived in the coastal enclave on Saturday in a show of solidarity, denouncing the Israeli attacks as illegitimate and unacceptable.

Officials in Gaza said 41 Palestinians, among them 20 civilians including eight children and a pregnant woman, had been killed in Gaza since Israel began operations four days ago. Three Israeli civilians were killed by a rocket on Thursday.

Israel's military said its air force had hit at least 180 targets since midnight, including a police headquarters, government buildings, rocket launching squads and a Hamas training facility in the impoverished territory.

A three-storey house belonging to Hamas official Abu Hassan Salah was also hit and completely destroyed early on Saturday. Rescuers said at least 30 people were pulled from the rubble.

"What Israel is doing is not legitimate and is not acceptable at all," Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdesslem said as he visited Haniyeh's wrecked headquarters. "It does not have total immunity and is not above international law."

Israel launched a massive air campaign on Wednesday with the declared aim of deterring Hamas from launching cross-border rocket salvoes that have plagued southern Israel for years.

The Palestinians have fired hundreds of rockets out of Gaza, including one at Jerusalem and three at Tel Aviv - Israel's commercial centre. Jerusalem had not been targeted in such a way since 1970, and Tel Aviv since 1991.

Although there were no reports of casualties or damage in either city, the long-range attacks came as a shock and advanced the prospect of an Israeli ground invasion into Gaza

"This will last as long as is needed; we have not limited ourselves in means or in time," Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel's Channel One television on Saturday.

Hamas says it is committed to continued confrontation with Israel and is eager not to seem any less resolute than smaller, more radical groups that have emerged in Gaza in recent years.

The Islamist Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007. Israel pulled settlers out of Gaza in 2005 but has maintained a blockade of the territory.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a four-hour strategy session late on Friday with a clutch of senior ministers on widening the military campaign, while other cabinet members were polled by telephone on increasing mobilisation.

Political sources said they decided to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000. It did not necessarily mean all would be called up.

Three soldiers were lightly hurt by fire from the Gaza Strip on Saturday, the army said.

Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil paid a high-profile visit to Gaza on Friday, denouncing what he described as Israeli aggression and saying Cairo was prepared to mediate a ceasefire.

Egypt's Islamist government, which took power after free elections following an uprising that ousted veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak, is allied with Hamas but also party to a 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

"Egypt will spare no effort ... to stop the aggression and to achieve a truce," Kandil said.

A Palestinian official with knowledge of Cairo's mediation efforts said on Saturday that Egypt was pursuing a truce.

"Egyptian mediators are continuing their mediation efforts and these will intensify in the coming hours," he told Reuters.

In a further sign Netanyahu might be clearing the way for a ground operation, Israel's armed forces decreed a highway leading to the territory and two roads bordering the enclave of 1.7 million Palestinians off-limits to civilian traffic.

Tanks and self-propelled guns were seen near the sandy border zone on Saturday, and around 16,000 reservists have already been called to active duty.

The Israeli military said some 367 rockets fired from Gaza had hit Israel since Wednesday and at least 222 more were intercepted by its Iron Dome anti-missile system.

Four Iron Domes were deployed initially and a fifth was rushed into action on Saturday, weeks ahead of schedule. The army said it was placed in the Tel Aviv area, showing Israel's concern for the safety of its heavily populated coastline.

Netanyahu is favoured to win a January election, but further rocket strikes against Tel Aviv, a free-wheeling city Israelis equate with New York, and Jerusalem, which Israel regards as its capital, could be political poison for the conservative leader.

U.S. President Barack Obama commended Egypt's efforts to help calm the Gaza violence in a call to Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi on Friday, the White House said, and underscored his hope of restoring stability.

In a call with Netanyahu, Obama discussed options for "de-escalating" the situation, the White House added.

Obama "reiterated U.S. support for Israel's right to defend itself, and expressed regret over the loss of Israeli and Palestinian civilian lives," a statement on the call said.

Israel Radio's military affairs correspondent said the army's Homefront Command had told municipal officials to make civil defence preparations for the possibility that fighting could drag on for seven weeks. An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment on the report.

The Gaza conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolutions and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread across borders.

"Israel should understand that many things have changed and that lots of water has run in the Arab river," Tunisia's Abdesslem told reporters in Gaza.

It is the stiffest challenge yet for Mursi, a veteran politician from the Muslim Brotherhood who was elected this year after protests ended Mubarak's 30-year rule in 2011.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood are spiritual mentors of Hamas, yet Mursi has also pledged to respect Cairo's peace accord with Israel, which is seen in the West as the foundation of regional security. Egypt and Israel both receive billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to underwrite their treaty.

Hamas fighters are no match for the Israeli military. The last Gaza war, involving a three-week long Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year period of 2008-2009, killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt next week to push for an end to the fighting in Gaza, U.N. diplomats said on Friday.

Hamas refuses to recognise Israel's right to exist. By contrast, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who rules in the nearby West Bank, does recognise Israel, but peace talks between the two sides have been frozen since 2010.

Abbas' supporters say they will push ahead with a plan to have Palestine declared an "observer state" rather than a mere "entity", at the United Nations later this month.</s>* Signs of preparations for possible invasion

GAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov 16 Israeli ministers were on Friday asked to endorse the call-up of up to 75,000 reservists after Palestinian militants nearly hit Jerusalem with a rocket for the first time in decades and fired at Tel Aviv for a second day.

The rocket attacks were a challenge to Israel's Gaza offensive and came just hours after Egypt's prime minister, denouncing what he described as Israeli aggression, visited the enclave and said Cairo was prepared to mediate.

Israel's armed forces announced that a highway leading to the Gaza Strip and two roads bordering the enclave would be off-limits to civilian traffic until further notice.

Tanks and self-propelled guns were seen near the border area on Friday, and the military said it had already called 16,000 reservists to active duty.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened senior cabinet ministers in Tel Aviv after the rockets struck to decide on widening the Gaza campaign.

Political sources said ministers were asked to approve the mobilisation of up to 75,000 reservists, in what could be preparation for a possible ground operation.

No decision was immediately announced and some commentators speculated in the Israeli media the move could be psychological warfare against Gaza's Hamas rulers. A quota of 30,000 reservists had been set earlier.

Israel began bombing Gaza on Wednesday with an attack that killed the Hamas military chief. It says its campaign is in response to Hamas missiles fired on its territory. Hamas stepped up rocket attacks in response.

Israeli police said a rocket fired from Gaza landed in the Jerusalem area, outside the city, on Friday.

It was the first Palestinian rocket since 1970 to reach the vicinity of the holy city, which Israel claims as its capital, and was likely to spur an escalation in its three-day old air war against militants in Gaza.

Rockets nearly hit Tel Aviv on Thursday for the first time since Saddam Hussein's Iraq fired them during the 1991 Gulf War. An air raid siren rang out on Friday when the commercial centre was targeted again. Motorists crouched next to cars, many with their hands protecting their heads, while pedestrians scurried for cover in building stairwells.

The Jerusalem and Tel Aviv strikes have so far caused no casualties or damage, but could be political poison for Netanyahu, a conservative favoured to win re-election in January on the strength of his ability to guarantee security.

"The Israel Defence Forces will continue to hit Hamas hard and are prepared to broaden the action inside Gaza," Netanyahu said before the rocket attacks on the two cities.

Asked about Israel massing forces for a possible Gaza invasion, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said: "The Israelis should be aware of the grave results of such a raid and they should bring their body bags."

Officials in Gaza said 28 Palestinians had been killed in the enclave since Israel began the air offensive with the declared aim of stemming surges of rocket strikes that have disrupted life in southern Israeli towns.

The Palestinian dead include 12 militants and 16 civilians, among them eight children and a pregnant woman. Three Israelis were killed by a rocket on Thursday. A Hamas source said the Israeli air force launched an attack on the house of Hamas's commander for southern Gaza which resulted in the death of two civilians, one a child.

A solidarity visit to Gaza by Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, whose Islamist government is allied with Hamas but also party to a 1979 peace treaty with Israel, had appeared to open a tiny window to emergency peace diplomacy.

Kandil said: "Egypt will spare no effort ... to stop the aggression and to achieve a truce."

But a three-hour truce that Israel declared for the duration of Kandil's visit never took hold. Israel said 66 rockets launched from the Gaza Strip hit its territory on Friday and a further 99 were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system.

Israel denied Palestinian assertions that its aircraft struck while Kandil was in the enclave.

Israel Radio's military affairs correspondent said the army's Homefront Command had told municipal officials to make civil defence preparations for the possibility that fighting could drag on for seven weeks. An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment on the report.

The Gaza conflagration has stoked the flames of a Middle East already ablaze with two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to leap across borders.

It is the biggest test yet for Egypt's new President Mohamed Mursi, a veteran Islamist politician from the Muslim Brotherhood who was elected this year after last year's protests ousted military autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood are spiritual mentors of Hamas, yet Mursi has also pledged to respect Cairo's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, seen in the West as the cornerstone of regional security. Egypt and Israel both receive billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to underwrite their treaty.

Mursi has vocally denounced the Israeli military action while promoting Egypt as a mediator, a mission that his prime minister's visit was intended to further.

A Palestinian official close to Egypt's mediators told Reuters Kandil's visit "was the beginning of a process to explore the possibility of reaching a truce. It is early to speak of any details or of how things will evolve".

Hamas fighters are no match for the Israeli military. The last Gaza war, involving a three-week long Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year period of 2008-2009, killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died.

Tunisia's foreign minister was due to visit Gaza on Saturday "to provide all political support for Gaza" the spokesman for the Tunisian president, Moncef Marzouki, said in a statement.

The United States asked countries that have contact with Hamas to urge the Islamist movement to stop its rocket attacks.

Hamas refuses to recognise Israel's right to exist. By contrast, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who rules in the nearby West Bank, does recognise Israel, but peace talks between the two sides have been frozen since 2010.

Abbas's supporters say they will push ahead with a plan to have Palestine declared an "observer state" rather than a mere "entity" at the United Nations later this month.</s>Last week rockets fired by Gaza militants spurred Israel to carry out air strikes on the territory, the first since the ceasefire that ended an eight-day war between Israel and Hamas in November.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the rocket, fired after sundown as Israel began commemorating its national remembrance day of the Nazi Holocaust, landed in an open area.</s>Hamas leaders said they had hanged two Palestinians found guilty of spying for Israel over a decade, making them the first to be executed since the end of a month-long amnesty for informants in April.

Sixteen Palestinians have been executed in Gaza for spying since Hamas seized the territory in 2007.

Hamas, which rejects any recognition of Israel as a legitimate state, says the executions are aimed at discouraging Palestinians from impoverished Gaza selling Israel information such as the whereabouts of top militants or weapons depots.

Human rights activists say such executions violate Palestinian law which says that any cases of this sort must be reviewed by President Mahmoud Abbas, but Hamas does not recognise the Western-backed Abbas as having authority in Gaza.
At least four Palestinians are injured following Israeli air strikes in Gaza that were reportedly in response to rockets launched into southern Israel by Hamas.