GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on Friday, raising the toll in four days of violence to 100, Gaza health officials said. The strikes have wounded some 670, the officials said.

Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said strikes overnight earlier killed six people.

“Two Palestinians were killed and a third was wounded in an Israeli strike that targeted a car belonging to the Bureij municipality,” Qudra told AFP.

“This brings the number of martyrs since the beginning of the Israeli aggression to 100,” he added.

Earlier, six Palestinians were killed in two strikes, including one on the home of an Islamic Jihad militant in the southern city of Rafah, medical sources said.

Witnesses said the militant, Abdel Razzaq Al-Ghannam, was not home when the attack took place, but five other people, including a woman and a seven-year-old child, were killed.

Another 15 people were wounded in the strike, which came an hour after another raid on Gaza City’s Tel el-Hawa neighborhood that killed 33-year-old Anas Abu Al-Kass.

The deaths raise to 100 the toll since Israel began Operation Protective Edge early Tuesday to halt cross-border rocket fire by militant groups.

Rocket fire from Gaza

Also on Friday, Gaza rocket fire struck a gas station and set it ablaze in southern Israel, seriously wounding one person as rocket fire also came from Lebanon for the first time in the four-day offensive. It is the deadliest violence since November 2012, with a growing number of rockets fired at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and even as far north as Haifa.

So far, no Israelis have been killed.

The explosion in Ashdod sent plumes of smoke high into the air, leaving a trail of charred vehicles in its wake. Israeli health officials said the blast wounded three people, including one in serious condition. Rocket fire continued in earnest from Gaza toward various locations in southern and central Israel, including toward Israel’s international airport.

… and from Lebanon

In northern Israel, rocket fire struck near the Lebanese border and the military responded with artillery fire toward the source in southern Lebanon, military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said.

The Lebanese military said three rockets were fired toward Israel around 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) and the Israelis retaliated by firing about 25 artillery shells on the area.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said that one of those suspected of firing the rockets was wounded and rushed to a hospital. The Lebanese military said troops found two rocket launchers and dismantled them.

Southern Lebanon is a stronghold of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which has battled Israel numerous times. However, recent fire from Lebanon has been blamed on radical Palestinian factions in the area and Hezbollah has not been involved in the ongoing offensive.

A Lebanon-based Al-Qaeda-linked group, the Battalions of Ziad Jarrah, claimed responsibility in the past for similar rocket attacks on Israel.

Breaching “Iron Dome” defense

Gaza militants already have fired more than 550 rockets against Israel in the four-day offensive. Israel’s “Iron Dome” defense system has intercepted most of those aimed at major cities but some have slipped through.

Frequent air raid sirens sounded across Israel on Friday, including for the first time in the northern city of Haifa. The commercial center of Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion airport also heard warning sirens but these rockets were intercepted and there was no disturbance to Israel’s air traffic. Israel has shot down at least 110 incoming rockets thus far.

Israel launched the Gaza offensive to stop incessant rocket fire that erupted after three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed in the West Bank and a Palestinian teenager was abducted and burned to death in an apparent reprisal attack.

The military says it has hit more than 1,100 targets already, mostly what it identified as rocket-launching sites, bombarding the territory on average every five minutes.

Lerner said the military was doing its utmost to prevent civilian casualties, calling inhabitants ahead of time to warn of imminent attacks. He said Israeli forces also fire “non-explosive munitions” at roofs as a warning and looks for people to leave before destroying a structure.

Lerner blamed Hamas for the death of innocent bystanders by firing from heavily populated areas.

Israel’s military “uses its weapons to defend its civilians. Hamas uses its civilians to defend its weapons,” he said.

Israeli leaders are mulling whether to launch a ground assault in Gaza to target Hamas. Such a move, though, would likely involve a rise in Palestinian civilian casualties and put Israeli troops at risk as well. Israel has mobilized more than 30,000 reservists to supplement the potential ground operation.

During a ground incursion in early 2009, hundreds of civilians were killed and both sides drew war crimes accusations in a United Nations report.

Middle East envoy Tony Blair said efforts were being made to try and reach a truce.

“We are in a critical point,” he said. “I think we have got to do everything we can to ... create a situation in which the people in Gaza and the West Bank and in Israel feel that this is not then going to recur and there is some genuine plan in place.”