The Israel Air Force struck targets in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday afternoon in retaliation for the cross-border shooting earlier in the day that resulted in the death of a civilian Defense Ministry employee.
Officials from Hamas, the Islamic group which rules Gaza, and witnesses said IAF aircraft bombed the group's training camps in Khan Younis and al-Bureij. Witnesses said IDF tanks fired shells east of Gaza city.
She was standing with other family members outside their home near the camp and her mother and two of her brothers were wounded, the officials said.Gaza hospital officials said a three-year-old girl was killed by shrapnel during the strike on the Bureij facility.
Salah Shukri Abu Latyef, 22, from Rahat, was working for Shabbat Drilling operating a tractor at the Gaza border when was shot by a Palestinian sniper.
He was airlifted to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba where he later succumbed to his wounds.
"The incident occurred very close to the border," one security source said.
"This was his first day working on the Gaza Strip border and unfortunately it was also his last day of life," Latyef's cousin said.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu responded soon after the sniper attack, calling it a "very grave incident" that Israel will not let go unanswered.
"Our policy up until now has been to prevent beforehand and to react with force, and this is how we will act now as well," he said.
Netanyahu made his comment as he was just about to fly back to Jerusalem from Sderot, where he went Tuesday to dedicate the new Tel Aviv-Sderot train line.
An IDF spokesman said that the military had limited the access of farmers working in the immediate vicinity of the fence in the aftermath of the attack.
In a separate incident, a Palestinian youth who approached the fence on the border with northern Gaza entered the closed security zone, and ignored calls by soldiers to vacate the area. He was shot in the leg and evacuated to a Gazan hospital by the Red Crescent.
The cross-border shooting comes after a spate of attempts by Palestinians to plant explosivesalong the security fence and to damage the barrier in recent days.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said there was "no direct relation" between terrorist attacks in Israel over the past two days and the cross-border shooting attack.
"We view take a most severe view of them. In Gaza, Hamas is sovereign, and we see it as being responsible for today's shooting from the Strip and rocket launches over the past today at Israel. We will not allow a disruption to life in the South, and we will respond decisively and painfully to attacks on our sovereignty and against our civilians and soldiers," the defense minister added.
He advised Hamas "not to test our patience," calling on Gaza's ruling regime to exercise its authority on the ground to prevent further attacks on Israel by other organizations.
"If there won't be quiet in Israel, there won't be quiet in Gaza either," Ya'alon warned.
"Terrorism incidents are the continuation of previous attacks, most of which are the result of a lone attacker, or one who has been influenced by the atmosphere of incitement and hatred that exists in the Palestinian Authority against Israel. This is an intolerable situation from our perspective, and despite the difficulties in dealing with a lone individual incited to murder Jews, we will act with a resolute hand and in various ways to harm anyone who tries to carry out terrorist attacks," Ya'alon pledged.
As long as the PA continues to incite against Israel and its civilians, and fails to promote a culture of peace, Israel will have to deal with attacks that result from this, he added. Ya'alon sent his condolences to the family of the fatally wounded civilian, and wished the policeman stabbed on Monday a swift recovery.
Shortly after midnight, on Sunday, Palestinian terrorists fired a rocket into southern Israel, triggering an air raid siren and sending residents fleeing for cover.
Security forces located the rocket’s remains after sunrise inside an Israeli village, where it fell between homes, failing to cause injuries or damages.
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