2 Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes

Israeli airstrikes killed a 12-year-old boy and a militant in the Gaza Strip early Sunday and Gaza rocket squads fired salvos into southern Israel, officials said, deepening the worst round of violence between the sides in more than a year.       

The Israeli military said its aircraft targeted rocket launchers and Gaza health official Adham Abu Salmia confirmed witness reports of the Palestinian dead, as the exchanges of fire entered their third day and Egyptian efforts to achieve a cease-fire faltered.       

"There is no room to talk about the calm considering the continued Zionist aggression on Gaza," Khaled Batch, a leader of the Islamic Jihad militant faction in Gaza, told The Associated Press.       

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the rockets launched from Gaza caused no injuries or damage. The military claims more casualties were averted because Iron Dome rocket e defense batteries intercepted 90 percent of the rockets they targeted.      

 Israeli airstrikes have killed 17 Gazans and Gaza militants have fired more than 110 rockets at Israel, seriously wounding a civilian, since the clashes erupted Friday with an Israeli air assault that killed the commander of a militant group.       

Israel accused Zuhair al-Qaissi of plotting an infiltration attack into Israel from Egypt's lawless Sinai Peninsula, similar to the one they claim he orchestrated in August, which killed eight Israelis. His militant group, the Hamas-allied Popular Resistance Committees, has never taken responsibility for that raid.       

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel remains prepared for a strike from the Sinai and pledged to deploy more Iron Dome missile defense batteries in the coming months and years.       

"We exacted a heavy price and continue to exact it," Netanyahu said of the Israeli strikes on Gaza. "We will continue to overcome these terror threats."       

Some 1 million Israelis are within range of rocket fire from Gaza, and on Sunday, schools throughout the area and Ben-Gurion University in Beer Sheva were closed because of the fighting. Rosenfeld said police stepped up their presence in southern Israel.      

AP