JERUSALEM, May 11 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel will increase its strikes against militants in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas, an Islamist Palestinian group that runs Gaza, will "receive blows now that it didn't expect," Netanyahu said in a statement after meeting with senior defense officials.
He said that the meeting was concluded with a decision to "further increase the volume and the rate of the attacks" in Gaza.
Israel's military issued a warning to the residents of the besieged Palestinian enclave, saying it was launching "an unusual wave of attacks," calling civilians to stay away from sites belonging to Hamas.
Gaza militants have fired hundreds of rockets at Israel since Monday afternoon, killing two women in the southern city of Ashkelon. At the same time, at least 26 Palestinians, including nine children, have been killed in Gaza during Israeli strikes.
The escalation was sparked by weeks of tensions at East Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which wounded hundreds of Palestinians in clashes with Israeli police. Enditem
