GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli soldier along the Gaza border on Friday, said the Israeli military, which launched dozens of strikes into Gaza that killed four Palestinians, including three Hamas fighters.
The soldier was the first to be killed on the Gaza front in active duty since a 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, an Israeli army spokesman said. He was on "operational activity" when he and colleagues came under fire, the military said.
At least four Palestinians were killed in later Israeli strikes, according to Palestinian medical officials. Hamas, the armed Islamist movement which controls Gaza, said three of the dead were its fighters. The fourth was a protester, local residents and medics said. At least 120 Gazans were wounded.
Egyptian security officials and a diplomat from another unnamed state were holding contacts with Hamas and Israel in an effort to restore calm and prevent further deterioration, a Palestinian official told Reuters. Gaza was relatively quiet after midnight, residents said.
A Palestinian official said: "Egypt has managed to restore calm through talks with the two sides in Israel and in Gaza ... We hope it lasts."
Israel said its aircraft and tanks had struck dozens of targets belonging to Hamas and across the Gaza Strip, including a drone warehouse, aerial defense systems and observation posts.
"The event that happened today is something that we cannot tolerate and cannot allow to become a routine norm, that's why we retaliated and that's why we continue to target military targets belonging to Hamas," said Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held emergency discussions with cabinet colleagues and military chiefs about the escalation, which follows four months of Palestinian border protests.
After dark on Friday, the Israeli military said that Gaza militants had launched three rockets into Israel, of which two were intercepted by its Iron Dome defense system. READ MORE
