Three Palestinians were killed in new Israeli air raids in Gaza on Sunday, raising the death toll to 18, as militants fired more rockets into the Jewish state.
Israeli war planes carried out four strikes on Sunday morning, killing three people, including a school boy and a 60-year-old civilian.
The bloodshed erupted on Friday afternoon when an Israeli strike killed the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), sparking a sharp cross-border exchange, in which 15 Gazans were killed and more than 100 rockets were fired at Israel.
It was the deadliest 24-hour period in and around Gaza in more than three years. By Sunday afternoon, the toll in Gaza stood at 18 dead and 30 injured, Palestinian medics said. Four people in Israel were injured by rockets.
The United States and the European Union have called on both sides to calm the situation, but efforts by Gaza’s Hamas rulers to broker an end to hostilities through Egyptian mediators have not yet borne fruit.
Published 11 March 2012, 18:21 IST