Palestinians inspect the remains of a car after it was hit in an Israeli missile strike, in Gaza City (AP photo)
Not a good day to be an activist in Gaza.
Israeli aircraft launched an assault on the radical Islamic Jihad organization in Gaza, killing the group's overall commander and nine other militants in three fiery strikes ending early Tuesday. A fourth attack on a security post in southern Gaza killed two Hamas militants.
The heavy death toll was part of a stepped-up offensive against the militants, who fire rockets into southern Israel almost daily. Islamic Jihad, a small radical group with ties to Iran, has taken responsibility for most of the barrages, including an attack this week that slightly wounded a 2-year-old Israeli boy.
Islamic Jihad acknowledged it had suffered heavy losses but said it would retaliate with suicide attacks inside Israel, threatening to unleash "a wave of martyrdom operations."
Thousands of Gazans took to the streets in funerals for the dead militants, whose bodies and coffins were draped with black Islamic Jihad flags. In northern Gaza, bullets from the rifles of mourners severed an electric wire that fell and injured five people, medics said.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak congratulated the army for its "successful activity" against Gaza militants.
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