Gaza terrorists kept up their most intense rocket fire on Israel since the 2014 Gaza war over Monday night and Tuesday morning, killing a civilian in Ashkelon and wounding dozens across Israel's south.
Starting from Monday afternoon, hundreds of projectiles fired from Gaza pounded Israeli communities, a day after a botched Israeli intelligence operation in Gaza that resulted in the deaths of an Israeli officer and seven Hamas operatives, including a key Hamas commander.
Magen David Adom emergency medical personnel were on the highest alert level, administering first aid to at least 55 people in a number of locations across southern Israel.
The man killed in Ashkelon was Mahmoud Bashir Abu Asbah, 48, from the Arab village of Halhul, near Hebron. He was killed when a rocket fired from Gaza scored a direct hit on an apartment building. His body was only discovered an hour after the impact, when a civilian surveyor working for a construction company came to film the damage and found the dead man and a seriously wounded woman in her 40s in the rubble.
The IDF said some 400 rockets and mortars had been launched from Gaza since Monday afternoon, with about 100 of them intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defense system.
School was canceled in many areas in southern Israel and a local election was postponed because of the threat of further attacks.
Over recent months, the sides have come close to a major escalation several times, only to step back in favor of giving a chance to a long-term Egyptian-mediated truce.
However, the current level of escalation and angry rhetoric, including Hamas' warnings to strike deeper inside Israel unless Israel halts its strikes in Gaza, may make it more difficult to restore calm.
Israel's Diplomatic-Security Cabinet, which had been due to meet Tuesday afternoon, pushed its meeting forward to 9 a.m. to discuss the next steps.
The eruption of fighting cast doubt over recent understandings brokered by Egypt and U.N. officials to reduce tensions. Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended those understandings, saying he was doing everything possible to avoid another war. But he will now be under intense pressure to retaliate, given Hamas' unrelenting rocket salvos.
Earlier on Monday, Hamas fired a guided missile that struck a bus from which soldiers had just disembarked. The missile represented an upgrade from the largely inaccurate projectiles typically fired from the Gaza Strip. The strike set the bus on fire, sending a large plume of black smoke over the area. A 19-year-old Israeli soldier was seriously wounded.
The airstrikes and rocket barrages resumed at dawn Tuesday after nearly two hours of calm.
IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said the Israeli military had enhanced its deployment along the border but had yet to mobilize any reserves. He said Gazan terrorist groups are believed to have an arsenal of more than 20,000 rockets and mortars of different calibers and ranges.
Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza from the internationally backed Palestinian Authority in 2007.
