Four airstrikes blew up two caravans near the town of Khan Yunis, witnesses and Hamas officials said. There were no casualties in this attack.
A fifth missile hit a cheese factory in Gaza City, setting it on fire, the witnesses and Hamas officials said. Hospital officials said three children were wounded by flying debris.
Helicopters struck twice in the central refugee camp of Nusseirat, destroying a metal foundry.
An Israeli military spokesman confirmed the attacks, saying they had targeted two weapons-manufacturing plants and two arms caches.
The three children, aged two, four and 11, were hit by flying glass in a raid on the Sabra district, in the western part of Gaza City, said Moawiya Hassanein, head of the Palestinian emergency services in Gaza.
Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom warned that the military would soon launch a new offensive on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip unless the rocket fire was halted.
“If this rocket fire against Israel does not stop, it seems we will have to raise the level of our activity and step up our actions against Hamas,” Shalom told public radio.
“We won’t allow frightened children to again be raised in bomb shelters and so, in the end, it will force us to launch another military operation,” said the deputy premier.
“I hope we can avoid it, but it is one of the options we have, and if we don’t have a choice, we will use it in the near future,” he said.
The head of the Hamas movement’s government in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, reacted by blaming the Jewish state for the increase in tensions. “We call on the international community to intervene to stop this escalation and Israeli aggression,” Haniyeh said in a statement.
The United States called on Israel and the Palestinians to pursue talks and said there was no “military solution” to the conflict after a flareup in violence.
“The Israelis have a right to self-defense. At the same, as we’ve said many times, we don’t ultimately think there is a military solution to this,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters.
“Our message remains to the Israelis and Palestinians that we need to get the proximity talks going, focus on the substance, move to direct negotiations and ultimately arrive at a settlement that ends the conflict once and for all.”
Britain on Friday expressed concern at the escalation in and around Gaza, calling for restraint and the launch of US-backed indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
“We are concerned by today’s strikes and the escalation of violence in Gaza and southern Israel over the past week. We call on all parties to show restraint,” a Foreign Office spokeswoman said.
“We encourage Israelis and Palestinians to focus efforts on negotiation and to engage urgently in US-backed proximity talks.”
The airstrikes came after a rocket fired by Palestinians landed near the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon late on Thursday, causing damage but no casualties, the army said.
Underscoring the tensions, warning sirens wailed across Ashkelon again on Friday morning, sending residents scurrying for shelters, but the army said it was a false alarm.
