Hamas decrees Gaza security alert after Israel strikes

The Islamist Hamas movement ruling the Gaza Strip on Saturday put all security forces on a 24-hour state of alert after two days of deadly clashes with Israel, a spokesman said.

"The interior ministry has decreed a state of alert. All security forces must work 24 hours in 24, even civil defense and medical services, to protect and save the people targeted by the Zionist occupiers," ministry spokesman Ihab al-Ghussein said.

The deadliest confrontation between Israel and Hamas since the 22-day new year war in 2008-2009 has taken the lives of 17 Palestinians in the Gaza enclave since Thursday, as armed groups attacks are swiftly followed by Israeli air raids.

"The Zionist enemy insists on attacking Palestinians and spilling their blood as the international community remains silent," Ghussein said.

"Groups in Gaza committed themselves to respecting the Palestinian consensus and halting rocket attacks, but the Zionist aggressor has ruined everything by attacking and killing civilians -- women, children and old people," he said.

Death toll rises

An Israeli tank round killed a Palestinian in Gaza early on Saturday, bringing to 12 the overall toll from the deadliest 24 hours of violence since the war ended more than two years ago.

Ghussein also accused the Israeli military of deliberately targeting emergency services and ambulances, and firing "phosphorus shells whose use is forbidden under international law."

The escalating tit-for-tat violence came despite calls for an end to the hostilities from both the European Union and the United Nations.

The latest round of fighting erupted on Thursday when fighters from the Hamas fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus, critically wounding a teenager and injuring the driver.

"The attack on a school bus yesterday crossed the line ... Whoever tries to hurt and murder children, his blood will be on his own head," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in Prague on Friday before heading home.

Since the bus attack, Israel has launched dozens of raids on targets across the Palestinian territory. By early Saturday, it had killed 17 Gazans -- including a 10-year-old boy, at least five Hamas militants and one policeman.

At least 57 Palestinians were wounded, 12 of them seriously, medics said.

Claim responsibility despite truce

Palestinian armed groups had declared a unilateral truce but both Hamas and Islamist Jihad claimed mortar and rocket attacks on Israel on Friday as the violence intensified.

"Our holy warriors are ready to react to the Zionist aggression and respond to any foolish acts committed by the occupation with everything they have," said a statement from Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli military said that rocket and mortar fire by Gaza militants had continued into Saturday morning.

Several industrially-manufactured Grad rockets had been fired at the Israeli port city of Ashkelon but had been intercepted by the newly-deployed Iron Dome short-range defense system, the spokeswoman added.

A statement on the Hamas military wing's website said the "resistance" had fired several Grad rockets at Ashkelon on Friday, and that smoke had been seen rising from the city.

However, the Israeli defense ministry said that the Iron Dome anti-rocket system, deployed around Ashkelon just last Monday, had intercepted three of the rockets, while a fourth struck open ground without causing damage.

The port city with a population of some 113,000 was the second city to be protected by an Iron Dome battery after the desert city of Beersheva which has also been a target for attack by Gaza militants.

The defense system, the first of its kind in the world and still at the experimental stage, is not yet able to provide complete protection against rocket fire from Gaza, army commanders have warned.