GAZA CITY: An Israeli air strike in Gaza killed a pregnant Palestinian woman and her toddler, drawing a warning on Sunday from Islamist movement Hamas, as unrest spun further towards a full-scale uprising.

After days of unrest in the West Bank and Israel, Gaza has been drawn into the violence since Friday, with clashes along the border leaving nine Palestinians dead from Israeli fire.

Israel’s military said it targeted “two Hamas weapon manufacturing facilities” overnight after Gaza militants fired two rockets and following Palestinian attempts to infiltrate southern Israel.

One rocket hit an open field in southern Israel and the other was intercepted.

Israel’s retaliatory air strikes demolished a house in the northern Gaza area of Zeitun, killing Nur Hassan, 30, and her two-year-old daughter Rahaf, Gaza medics said.

The Hamas chief in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, has branded the spiralling violence an “intifada” and called for further unrest.

In fresh clashes on the border in central and northern Gaza, Israeli soldiers fired warning shots in the air to try to disperse hundreds of stone throwing Palestinians, a military spokeswoman said.

In response to the air strike, a Hamas spokesman said “this shows the occupation’s desire to escalate”.

“We warn the occupation against continuing this foolishness,” said Sami Abu Zuhri.

Hamas, which rules Gaza, the enclave hit by three devastating wars with Israel since 2008, remains deeply at odds with president Mahmud Abbas’s West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.

It was unclear whether Hamas or another group fired the rockets on Saturday night.

Salafists claiming links to the Islamic State group (IS) militants have said they were behind recent rocket fire from Gaza, but Israel holds Hamas responsible for all such acts as the main power in the territory.On Sunday morning, Israeli security forces said they foiled a major attack when an explosion seriously wounded a Palestinian woman and lightly injured an Israeli policeman.

The policeman had spotted a “suspicious” vehicle at a checkpoint between the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim and Jerusalem and ordered the woman, identified as 31-year-old Israa Jaabis, to stop.

Jaabis shouted “Allah Akbar” (God is greatest) before the explosion went off, according to the security forces.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2015

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