Men, women, and children are running into bomb shelters as more rockets are launched from #Gaza into Israel. IDF tanks continue to strike Hamas targets in Gaza.
We will defend Israel says IDF.
IDF also confirmed that in the middle of a LIVE broadcast from a home hit by a rocket, anIsraeli journalist runs for shelter as 4 more rockets are fired towards where he was reporting.
Palestinian militants fired over 200 rockets into Israel, drawing dozens of retaliatory airstrikes on targets across the Gaza Strip in a round of intense fighting that broke a month-long lull between the bitter enemies.
Three Palestinians, including a mother and her baby daughter, were killed, while three Israelis, including an 80-year-old woman, were wounded by rocket fire.
The fighting came as leaders from Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza, and the smaller armed faction Islamic Jihad, were in Cairo for talks with Egyptian mediators aimed at preventing a fraying cease-fire from collapsing altogether.
It also comes at a sensitive time for Israel, which is to mark its Memorial Day and Independence Day holiday this week, before hosting the Eurovision song contest in the middle of the month.
Heavy fighting could overshadow the Eurovision and potentially deter international travellers from coming in for the festive song contest.
Israel and Hamas, an Islamic group that opposes Israel's existence, have fought three wars and dozens of smaller flare-ups of violence since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007.
They engaged in several days of heavy fighting in March before Egypt brokered a truce in which Israel agreed to ease a crippling blockade on Gaza in exchange for a halt in rocket fire.
In recent days, Hamas accused Israel of reneging on its pledges as militants began to fire rockets into Israel.
In a familiar scene, air raid sirens wailed across southern Israel throughout the day and into the evening as barrages of rockets were repeatedly fired.
Retaliatory airstrikes caused large explosions to thunder across Gaza, as plumes of smoke rose into the air. Outgoing Palestinian rockets left long trails of smoke behind them.
Gaza's Health Ministry said a 14-month-old girl, Seba Abu Arar, was killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit their home in east Gaza City.
Her pregnant mother, 37, was severely wounded and died later at the hospital, the ministry added.
Another child was moderately injured.
"They were sitting at the yard in their house with their mother. They were shocked by a missile landing on them," said Abu Nidal Abu Arar, a relative living next door.
"This occupation is criminal."
In Israel, medical officials said an 80-year-old woman was severely wounded by rocket fire, a 50-year-old man was moderately wounded by shrapnel and a teenage boy was mildly hurt as he ran for cover.
In the morning, Gaza's Health Ministry said a 22-year-old Palestinian man was killed by an Israeli airstrike, and 13 other Palestinians were wounded. Israeli police said a house in the coastal city of Ashkelon was damaged.
The Israeli military accused the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad of instigating the latest round of violence by shooting and wounding two Israeli soldiers yesterday.
It said the shooting was not coordinated with Hamas, but said it holds Hamas, as the territory's ruling power, responsible for all fire emanating from Gaza.
By nightfall, the army said militants had fired well over 200 rockets into Israel.
It said dozens of the rockets were intercepted by its Iron Dome rocket-defence system. But it closed roads near the Gaza border to civilian traffic and closed a popular beach as a security precaution.
Sources: IDF / One News Now
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