Israeli strikes kill Islamic Jihad commanders in Gaza

At slightest 12 Palestinians, including 3 commanders of the militant radical Islamic Jihad, person been killed successful Israeli aerial strikes connected the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian wellness officials said 3 women and 3 children were among the dead. Another 20 radical were injured.

Israel said it had launched an cognition targeting militants who posed an imminent menace to its citizens.

Islamic Jihad has vowed revenge and Gaza-based militants are expected to respond with rocket occurrence into Israel.

Correspondents accidental 1 important origin volition beryllium the grade to which Hamas, which controls the Strip, joins in.

Israel officials are said to beryllium preparing for days of fighting.

Forty Israeli warplanes and helicopters attacked successful respective waves of pre-dawn aerial strikes crossed Gaza, hitting homes and causing panic among residents.

Pictures showed astatine slightest 2 apartments with their fronts ripped distant and others damaged.

The Israeli subject said that successful summation to targeting the 3 militants its craft struck 10 sites utilized to manufacture weapons and six Islamic Jihad subject facilities.

Islamic Jihad's subject wing, the al-Quds Brigades, confirmed that 3 commanders were among those killed.

It identified them arsenic Jihad Shaker al-Ghannam, caput of the al-Quds Brigades' Military Council; Khalil Salah al-Bahtini, the commandant of its Northern Region, and Tariq Muhammad Ezzedine, a person of its subject activities successful the occupied West Bank.

"As we mourn our martyr leaders, on with their mujahideen wives and a fig of their children, we affirm that the humor of the martyrs volition summation our resolve," the al-Quds Brigades said.

"We volition not permission our positions, and the absorption volition continue, God willing."

Israel's Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, said: "Any violent who harms Israeli citizens volition beryllium made to regret it."

Islamic Jihad was down caller rounds of rocket occurrence into Israel, immoderate of which was sparked by the decease successful an Israeli situation of a Palestinian hunger striker.