Israeli aircraft bombed up to six targets in the Gaza Strip in the early hours of Friday after a Palestinian rocket attack killed a civilian in southern Israel.
Tensions between Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and Israel intensified on the eve of the Middle East Quartet meeting in Moscow involving Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
On Thursday, a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave killed a 30-year-old farm worker from Thailand less than an hour after EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton arrived to the Palestinian territory on an official visit.
Palestinian security officials said Israeli air strikes hit six sites, including smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border. Other targets included two tunnels near the Israeli border, a weapons manufacturing site, and two open areas in Khan Younis and a metal foundry near Gaza City. Two civilians were reported injured in the bombings.
Two militant groups, Ansar al-Sunna, which is believed to be inspired by al-Qaeda, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, linked to the Fatah movement, later claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Middle East peace efforts stalled last week after Israel's announcement that it had given the go-ahead for the building of 1,600 housing units for Jewish families in the disputed area of East Jerusalem. The news threatened to derail the agreed resumption of peace talks, with the Palestinian side saying it would pull out unless the building plans were abandoned.
Settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, both occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, has been the main obstacle to reviving peace talks.
Under the internationally agreed roadmap for Middle East peace, Israel is obliged to freeze all settlement construction activity and remove unauthorized outposts built since 2001 from Palestinian territories.
TEL AVIV, March 19 (RIA Novosti)
