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GAZA CITY: Two Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes near the Gaza town of Khan Yunis on Monday morning, bringing the toll in three days of violence to 20, medics told AFP.
A first man, named as 24-year-old Suleiman Abu Mutlaq, was killed in a raid east of Khan Yunis, while the second, 24-year-old Raafat Jawad Abu Eid, was killed when a strike hit his motorbike south of the town, medical sources said.
The second strike left two people injured, they added.
The Israeli army did not immediately confirm the strikes, but earlier on Monday morning said it had targeted six separate sites in raids that the Palestinians said left at least 38 people injured.
An Israeli spokeswoman said the raids “targeted a weapons storage facility and four rocket launching sites in the northern Gaza Strip, as well as a rocket launching site in the southern Gaza Strip.”
The raids were the latest in a round of tit-for-tat violence that erupted with Israel's killing of a senior militant on Friday and has seen dozens of air raids on Gaza and over 120 rockets fired from the territory into Israel.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP on Monday morning that 11 rockets had been fired into Israel overnight, one of which caused damage to a building in a kibbutz near the border with Gaza.
He said 50 rockets were fired into southern Israel on Sunday, as the Palestinians reported four air raids in Gaza, which left three people dead, including a 12-year-old boy killed on his way to school.
In a statement, the spokesman for the Hamas-run emergency services in Gaza said “since Friday we have 20 martyrs and 68 injured in more than 35 airstrikes.”
The renewed strikes came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned raids would continue “as long as necessary” and Hamas officials said efforts to broker a ceasefire through Egypt were not bearing fruit.
