Israeli strikes push Gaza toll up

GAZA CITY: Israeli air strikes in Gaza killed 10 Palestinians on Saturday as nine Israelis including four soldiers were hurt by rocket fire, medics said.

The bloodshed raised to 42 the total number of Palestinians killed in just over 72 hours of Israeli air strikes, while another 393 were injured, Gaza's emergency services said.

Over the same period, three Israelis have been killed by rockets and another 18 injured, 10 of them soldiers, police and the army said.

In the latest strike, warplanes hit the southern Gaza city of Rafah, killing Osama Qadi, 25, and injuring another two people, emergency services spokesman Adham Abu Selmiya said.

Earlier attacks on Rafah killed five people including an ambulance worker called Awad Nahal.

Another three people were killed in a strike on Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, with security sources naming them as Ali Manameh, Hossam Abdel Jawad and Assaf Gharwish.

Palestinian medics said another Palestinian, wounded in a strike on Zeitun in Gaza City earlier in the day, died of his injuries. They named him as 24-year-old Mohammed Yassin.

Meanwhile in Israel, nine people were injured by rocket fire on Saturday.

Four were soldiers who sustained light injuries, the army said, with military sources saying they were "inside a building" at the time.

The military said the incident occurred in the Eshkol regional council area, and Hamas militants claimed the attack, saying they had fired five mortar rounds at a "position" in Reim some eight kilometres (five miles) from central Gaza.

During the afternoon, another five Israelis were lightly injured when four rockets hit the southern coastal town of Ashdod, scoring direct hits on a block of flats and a vehicle, the police and army said. (AFP)