GAZA/OCCUPIED AL-QUDS (Dispatches) – The occupying regime of Israel carried out more strikes on the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and Palestinians retaliated with rocket attacks on Zionist targets in the most serious exchanges of aerial fire since a 2014 war.
The fighting - which has martyred six Palestinians, five of them militants, and a Palestinian man in Occupied Palestine since Monday -threatened to derail efforts by the United Nations, Egypt and Qatar to head off another major conflict in the impoverished, densely populated enclave.
Hamas, Gaza’s dominant resistance movement, and other armed factions fired over 400 rockets or mortar bombs across the fenced separation barrier after carrying out a surprise guided-missile attack on Monday on a bus of troops, the military said.
The Zionist regime claims one soldier was injured but the ferocity of its attacks on Gaza suggests high casualties, according to observers.  
Meanwhile, the Palestinian retaliatory salvoes were the fiercest since the seven-week Gaza war in 2014. Hamas said it was retaliating for a botched Israeli commando raid in Gaza that killed one of its commanders and six other resistance fighters on Sunday. A Zionist colonel was also killed in that incident.
In Gaza City, people gathered in front of a large mound of debris that was once a multi-floor structure. It was flanked by five-storey buildings still standing after the airstrike, their shattered stone facades adding to the tall pile of rubble.
In the occupied coastal city of Ashkelon, a settler was taken to hospital in critical condition after a rocket attack.
The body of a man, killed when the rocket hit the home, was next to her.  
Zionist PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who said on Sunday he hoped to avoid another Gaza war, convened his security cabinet to discuss the occupying regime’s next moves.
A Palestinian official said Egypt and the United Nations had stepped up efforts to end the current round of fighting.
"The (Palestinian factions) agreed to hold fire to give Egyptian efforts to end Israeli aggression a chance, but the factions will respond to every Israeli attack,” the official said.
There was no word from the security cabinet session whether the occupying regime would agree, and retaliatory rocket attacks continued amid Israeli airstrikes as the forum met.
Since the 2014 war, both Hamas and the Zionist regime have pulled back after brief bouts of fighting from another large-scale conflict.
Sirens again rang out in southern occupied towns on Tuesday after Palestinian rockets crashed into several structures overnight.
They came after Israel carried out dozens of airstrikes, hitting buildings overnight that included the studios of Al-Aqsa Television.
A statement issued by resistance movements in Gaza said Ashdod, a major occupied port just north of Ashkelon, and Beersheba, the biggest city in southern Occupied Palestine, would be hit next if the Zionist regime didn’t cease fire.
In Gaza, Israeli missiles flattened seven buildings, mostly in Gaza City including the TV station.  
Abdallah Abu Habboush, 22, said he was awakened by shouts from neighbors.
"Old men who were with us fainted because of the smoke,” he said, adding that he had no idea why the structure was hit.  
The occupying regime of Israeli has stepped up its violence since Palestinians launched weekly protests on March 30 to demand the easing of the blockade on Gaza and rights to lands occupied in 1948. Zionist troops have martyred more than 220 Palestinians during the protests.
Hamas and the occupying regime of Israel have fought three wars since the resistance movement won parliamentary elections in Gaza in 2007.