: Israel and Gaza Militants Exchange Fire After Deadly Strikes #WorldNEWS GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli airstrikes flattened homes in Gaza on Saturday and rocket barrages into southern Israel

Israel and Gaza Militants Exchange Fire After Deadly Strikes #WorldNEWS
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli airstrikes flattened homes in Gaza on Saturday and rocket barrages into southern Israel persisted, raising fears of an escalation in a conflict that has killed at least 15 people in the coastal strip.
The fighting began with Israel’s killing of a senior commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group in a wave of strikes Friday that Israel said were meant to prevent an imminent attack. A 5-year-old girl and two women are among those killed in the strikes.
So far, Hamas, the larger militant group that rules Gaza, appeared to stay on the sidelines of the conflict, keeping its intensity somewhat contained. Israel and Hamas fought a war barely a year ago, one of four major conflicts and several smaller battles over the last 15 years that wreaked a staggering cost to the impoverished territory’s 2 million Palestinian residents.
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Whether Hamas continues to stay out of the fight likely depends in part on how much punishment Israel inflicts in Gaza as rocket fire steadily continues.
On Saturday afternoon, Israeli warplanes stepped up strikes with hits on four residential buildings in Gaza City, all locations apparently linked to Islamic Jihad militants. The destruction was the heaviest yet in the current exchange within the densely packed city, but there were no reports of casualties. In each case, the Israeli military warned residents ahead of the strikes.
Another strike Saturday hit a car, killing a 75-year-old woman and wounding six other people.
In one of the strikes, after the warnings, fighter jets dropped two bombs on the house of an Islamic Jihad member. The blast flattened the two-story structure, leaving a large rubble-filled crater, and badly damaged surrounding homes.
Women and children rushed out of the area.
“Warned us? They warned us with rockets and we fled without taking anything,” said Huda Shamalakh, who lived next door. She said 15 people lived in the targeted home.
The lone power plant in Gaza ground to a halt at noon Saturday for lack of fuel as Israel has kept its crossing points into Gaza closed since Tuesday. With the new disruption, Gazans can get only 4 hours of electricity a day, increasing their reliance on private generators and deepening the territory’s chronic power crisis amid peak summer heat.
Throughout the day, Gaza militants regularly launched rounds of rockets into southern Israel, but there were no reports of casualties. Most barrages were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system, hit in empty areas or fell short into Gaza. Rocket shrapnel damaged the roof of a home in the city of Sderot, but the family was in a shelter.

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