Israeli strike on Hamas kills Palestinian woman, child

An Israeli air strike on a Hamas target in the Gaza Strip on Sunday brought down a nearby house killing a Palestinian woman and her daughter, hospital officials said, as a wave of violence in the region triggered fears of wider escalation.

The Israeli military said in a statement its air force had targeted two weapons sites belonging to Hamas, the Islamist militant group which controls Gaza, in response to the launching of two rockets into Israel on Saturday and Friday.

Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said the woman killed was aged 30 and pregnant, her daughter was three. A five-year-old boy and a man were wounded, he added.

No group claimed responsibility for launching the rocket, which was intercepted near the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon. The Israeli military said it held Hamas responsible for any attacks from Gaza.

In 12 days of bloodshed, four Israelis and 22 Palestinians, many of whom had carried out knife attacks, have been killed in Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank, Gaza and Israeli cities. This has raised concerns that a new Palestinian uprising may be brewing.

Palestinians have been angered by events at the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City and fear Israel wants to change the religious status quo at Islam's third holiest shrine, revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount. Israel has said it has no intention to do so.

The almost daily Palestinian knife attacks and clashes between Israeli soldiers and stone-throwing Palestinians are not at the levels of past Palestinian uprisings, but the rapid escalation has triggered talk of a third "intifada".