Gaza rockets kill 1 Israeli, injure 11

JERUSALEM: An Israeli man was killed as rockets from Gaza hit a residential building in southern Israel, after two Palestinian rocket commanders were killed by Israeli airstrikes on Thursday.

The rocket hit the second floor of a four-storey residential building on Thursday afternoon in Rehovot, a city 25 km south of Tel Aviv, Xinhua news agency reported, citing a statement issued by Israel's Fire and Rescue Services.

Israel's Magen David Adom emergency medical service identified the fatality as a male resident of Rehovot. The Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot said in a statement that nine people were injured in the building and needed hospital care.

In the southern regional council of Eshkol, a man, identified by the Magen David Adom as a 30-year-old foreign national, was injured by shrapnel as a rocket hit a community.

In the regional council of Sdot Negev, another rocket hit the backyard of a residential house, lightly injuring an 82-year-old Israeli woman, according to Magen David Adom.

The rocket fire followed the killing of Ali Hassan Ghali, the commander of the rocket force of the Islamic Jihad, and his deputy, Ahmed Abu Daqqa, by two Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip earlier in the day, raising the Palestinian death toll to 28.

At least 547 rockets were fired toward southern and central Israel since the fighting began on Tuesday, with 394 of them crossing into Israeli territory, according to official Israeli figures.

The intense fighting began after Israel killed three senior Islamic Jihad commanders in airstrikes in Gaza on Tuesday.

Efforts to negotiate truces by Egypt, a frequent mediator between the Palestinians and Israel, have not yet yielded results. Israel's state-owned Kan TV news reported that an Egyptian team was traveling to Israel for talks but it was unclear whether any progress has been achieved.