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JERUSALEM — Hamas militants fired a rocket into an Israeli border village, wounding two young sisters as they played outside their home. The attack followed Israel airstrikes against Gaza militants and threats of an "all-front" war on the Islamic group.
The rapid-fire events threatened to escalate into large scale combat that could bury U.S.-led Mideast peace efforts.
Hamas stepped up its rocket barrages at southern Israel for a second day, retaliating for an Israeli strike that killed seven of its police officers. More than a dozen rockets rained down, one exploding at Kibbutz Beeri, a communal village about four miles from the border fence.
Two sisters, ages 12 and 2, were lightly wounded as they played in their yard, police said. Their mother was taken to a hospital for shock.
Israel unleashed an intensified air campaign after Hamas claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing Monday that killed one woman in southern Israel. It was the first such Hamas attack in Israel in more than three years.
Overnight, Israeli aircraft fired at militants who launched rockets moments before, the military said. Hamas said four of its men were wounded.
Israeli aircraft hit a metal workshop in Gaza City after nightfall Wednesday, Hamas said. No one was hurt. A few minutes later, aircraft targeted a Hamas car in southern Gaza; there were no reports of injuries. The Israeli military confirmed it carried out two airstrikes.
Before dawn Thursday, Israeli ground forces backed by warplanes exchanged fire with Hamas gunmen in Gaza, killing a teacher and six militants.
The fighting erupted after Israeli tanks drove several hundred yards into Gaza. Hamas militants and Israeli troops traded fire as Israeli aircraft fired missiles and Hamas lobbed mortar shells.
Five Hamas men were killed, three by missiles and two by gunfire, said Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas' military wing. Two were field commanders, he said. The Islamic Jihad faction said one of its militants also died in the clash.
Palestinian medics confirmed that six bodies were removed from the area.
The teacher died and two other staffers were hurt when an Israeli surface-to-surface missile struck an agricultural school in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, Hamas security forces said. It released no further details, and school officials weren't immediately available for comment.
The Israeli military, which frequently operates in Beit Hanoun against Palestinian rocket squads, said it opened fire in the area at a group of rocket launchers. "We definitely did not fire at a school," a military spokeswoman said, adding that the military was looking into the report. She spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with policy.
The military reported that three rockets were fired at southern Israel on Thursday morning, and one landed, causing no damage or injuries.
The surge in fighting threatened to overwhelm peacemaking efforts in an avalanche of rocket attacks, reprisals and bombings.
A poll released Wednesday showed Hamas jumping in popularity for breaking down a border wall with Egypt on Jan. 23, allowing Gaza's quarantined people a 12-day taste of freedom before Egypt closed the breaches Sunday.
Israel on Wednesday approved construction of a fence along the 150-mile desert border with Egypt, fearing that Palestinian militants who crossed from Gaza into Egypt could infiltrate into Israel.
The issue of the border has arisen several times since the border was established in 1982. Most recently, Israel pledged to build a border fence in early 2007, after a suicide bomber infiltrated from Egypt and killed three Israelis in the southern port of Eilat. It considered the issue again after an upsurge in smuggling and an influx of African refugees.
Despite Wednesday's decision, no funds were budgeted, and it was not clear when construction would start.
At first, Israel assumed the bomber who hit the southern town of Dimona on Monday came in from Egypt, but Hamas identified the bombers as militants from the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri defended the suicide bombing.
"There is no choice, no option for our people, but to resist the occupation and defend themselves by all possible means," he told The Associated Press.
With the suicide bombing and its renewed involvement in rocket attacks, Hamas was showing it could be an effective spoiler in peace efforts.
Hamas does not recognize Israel and has sent dozens of suicide bombers to attack inside the country. The Islamic militants, who rule Gaza after expelling forces loyal to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last June, are not a party to peace talks renewed at a U.S.-sponsored conference in November.
Israel insists that Abbas must retake control of Gaza and neutralize militants before any peace accords are implemented. For the meantime, the balance of power is tilting toward Hamas.
While Hamas gains clout among Palestinians by breaking Israel's stranglehold on Gaza, even temporarily, Abbas' administration is coping with a strike by civil servants protesting a new regulation aimed at forcing West Bank residents to pay millions of dollars in back utility bills.
The strike showed that despite the renewal of foreign aid to Abbas' regime, Palestinians under his control are still in serious economic trouble.
So are Palestinians in Gaza, but many are united in blaming Israel for their troubles. Israel, for its part, planned to keep up its economic pressure on Gaza. Last week Israel's Supreme Court cleared the way for reduction in electricity supplies starting Thursday.
Israel indicated that it would not let up in its attacks.
"We need to understand there is a war in the south," Vice Premier Haim Ramon told Israel Radio. "The war against Hamas has to be fought on all fronts."
In Gaza, the Hamas-dominated legislature canceled Wednesday's session, fearing an Israeli attack. The Israeli military refused to comment.
It was unlikely that Abbas could press ahead with serious peace talks during a high-profile conflict between Israel and Hamas. Abbas has been forced to periodically condemn Israeli attacks in the name of Palestinian solidarity.
On Wednesday, Abbas condemned the rocket fire but urged Israel to let supplies in.
"These rockets that are being fired at Israel must stop. It's pointless," he said at a news conference with Austria's foreign minister. "At the same time, Israel should not use these rockets as a pretext for collective punishment on Palestinians in Gaza."
