Israel has shelled the Palestinian territory of Gaza, killing one person and injuring eight, in retaliation to an earlier mortar attack from Gaza which struck a bus in southern Israel.
Two people, including a 16-year-old boy, were injured when an anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip exploded when it hit a school bus. A 50-year-old man was killed and at least eight people including a 4-year-old girl were injured in the densely populated Gaza Strip by the Israeli response, which included tank, warplane and helicopter fire.
Palestinian militants later fired five rockets and 12 mortar shells into southern Israel, police said. Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak said Israel regards the Islamic Hamas movement, which controls Gaza, as responsible for all attacks from the enclave.
The fighting follows two days of Israeli air strikes against smuggling tunnels in the territory. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned after a March 23rd bombing in Jerusalem that left one Israeli dead and an escalation in rocket fire from Gaza last month that Israel was ready to use "great force" to try to put an end to attacks against its civilians.
Mr Netanyahu was in Berlin today, where German chancellor Angela Merkel said progress in the Mideast peace process is "more urgent than ever."
Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority broke down last year less than a month after they began when Mr Netanyahu refused to extend a 10-month freeze on construction in the West Bank. Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas said he wouldn't negotiate unless all settlement building was halted.
Agencies