Palestinian militants target Jerusalem as Gaza death toll hits 31

Israel bombarded Islamic Jihad positions in the Gaza Strip for a third day Sunday as violence escalated, with 31 Palestinians reported dead and militants firing their first rockets at Jerusalem.

Six children were among those killed in the latest "Israeli aggression" since Friday, and 265 people have been wounded, said health authorities in the Islamist-run enclave where several buildings were reduced to rubble.

The fighting is the worst in Gaza since a war last year devastated the impoverished coastal territory, home to some 2.3 million Palestinians, and forced Israelis to seek shelter from rockets.

Israel pressed on with its aerial and artillery bombardment of positions of Islamic Jihad, an Iran-backed group designated as a terrorist organization by several Western nations, as the group has fired over 500 rockets in return.

The Israeli army has said the entire "senior leadership of the military wing of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza has been neutralized", and Prime Minister Yair Lapid vowed Sunday that "the operation will continue as long as necessary".

In Gaza, run by the Islamist group Hamas -- who said Sunday they were "united" with Islamic Jihad, but have not joined the fray -- the ministry said 31 people had died since the start of Israel's "Operation Breaking Dawn".

Israel said it had "irrefutable" evidence that a stray rocket fired by Islamic Jihad was responsible for the deaths of several children in Jabalia, northern Gaza, on Saturday.

It was not immediately clear how many children were killed there, but an AFP photographer saw six dead bodies at the local hospital, including three minors.

"We were sitting in the street and suddenly we saw an explosion," said Muhammad Abu Sadaa, describing the devastation in Jabalia.

"We came running to the place and found body parts lying on the ground... they were torn-apart children."

Leaders targeted

The army said it had struck 139 Islamic Jihad positions, with the militants firing 470 rockets that had crossed into Israel, while another 115 rockets fired from Gaza fell inside the enclave.

Al Quds Brigades, the Islamic Jihad's military wing, said it had "fired rockets" at Jerusalem, where sirens wailed and explosions were heard as the army shot them down.

In total, Israel said its Iron Dome air defense system had intercepted some 185 rockets, with a success rate of 97 percent of projectiles targeted.

Jews in Israel-annexed east Jerusalem meanwhile marked the Tisha Be'av fasting day Sunday at the Al Aqsa mosque compound, known in Judaism as the Temple Mount, where some Palestinians shouted "God is greatest" in response.

Tensions there have previously sparked wider violence -- with Hamas's Doha-based chief Ismail Haniyeh warning of the risk of an "uncontrollable" security crisis.

An AFP photographer was briefly detained by Israeli police, amid a heavy security deployment, but wider commemorations passed off without major incident.

Israel has said it was necessary to launch a "pre-emptive" operation against Islamic Jihad, as the group was planning an imminent attack.

"Whoever seeks to hurt Israeli citizens will be hurt," said Defense Minister Benny Gantz.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has said Cairo was talking with both sides "around the clock" to ease the violence, but Gantz said strikes would continue "until we restore quiet and remove the threats".

Israel's army has reported killing senior leaders of Islamic Jihad in Gaza, including Taysir al-Jabari in Gaza City and Khaled Mansour in Rafah in the south, as well as the arrest of 20 members in the West Bank.

Israel's Lapid called the killing of Mansour an "extraordinary achievement".

'We are all alone'

Daily life in the Gaza strip has come to a standstill, with the sole power station shut down due to a lack of fuel after Israel closed its border crossings.

Gaza's health ministry said the next few hours will be "crucial and difficult", warning that without electricity it soon risked suspending vital services.

In Gaza City, resident Dounia Ismail said the Israeli bombardment "brings back images of fear, anxiety and the feeling that we are all alone".

Civilians in southern and central Israel, meanwhile, were forced into air raid shelters, with two people hospitalized with shrapnel wounds and 13 others lightly hurt while running for safety, the Magen David Adom emergency service said.

"It's tense, it's frightening," said Beverly Jamil, a resident of Ashkelon close to Gaza, who has been rushing repeatedly to her air raid shelter.

"Ashkelon's a ghost town -- it's a holiday, kids should be out playing."

Meanwhile, the response of Hamas to the violence remains critical, with spokesman Fawzi Barhoum offering the group's support to Islamic Jihad on Sunday, but stopping short of saying they would take part.

Islamic Jihad is aligned with Hamas but often acts independently. Hamas has fought four wars with Israel since seizing control of Gaza in 2007, including the conflict last May.

"The resistance in all its military wings and factions are united in this battle," Barhoum said. —Agence France-Presse