Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades

Israeli strikes hit south Gaza and across its border with Lebanon, the army said Monday ahead of a visit by the top U.S. diplomat who is seeking to avert a wider war.

Gaza's health ministry said 73 dead and 99 wounded had arrived at Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza's Deir al-Balah city over the previous 24 hours.

The Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah said on Telegram that it views the killings of senior Hamas members in Beirut as a "serious attack on Lebanon" and a "dangerous development in the course of the war between the enemy and the axis of resistance," Reuters reported.

A prosecutor on Crete has launched a preliminary investigation into claims that an Egyptian national incited violence by calling on his co-religionists to support the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Hamas said it was engaged in "heavy fighting" with Israeli troops on Sunday inside northern Gaza, where besieged residents were again told to flee.

After weeks of ferocious air strikes, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared a new "stage" in what he warned will be a "long and difficult" war.

Israeli airstrikes on Gaza were reported early on Aug. 29.

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Strikes hit a location used by Hamas' armed wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades and a farm, according to an Anadolu Agency reporter, citing witnesses.

Palestinian authorities did not comment about if the strikes caused any casualties.

Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes late on Aug. 21 on several locations in the besieged Gaza Strip.

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Tensions increased in the region after hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated on the Gaza-Israel border.

Clashes continue today, with at least 35 killed in Gaza and five in Israel.
Palestinian forces have confirmed that they fired hundreds of missiles at Tel Aviv after an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip, and the Israeli army said it was targeting militants in Gaza in response to rocket attacks on Jerusalem and other areas, Reuters reports.

Palestinian Islamist group Hamas said on Dec. 17 a Tunisian engineer murdered in the North African country was one of its leaders, accused Israel of the killing and vowed to avenge him.

Mohamed Zaouari, a 49-year-old engineer, was murdered at the wheel of his car outside his house in Tunisia's second city, Sfax, on Dec. 15.

Israel carried out an air strike on the Gaza Strip early on Oct.5 in response to a Palestinian rocket attack from the territory, an army statement said. 

"Israel Air Force aircraft targeted a Hamas terror site in the northern Gaza Strip," it said.
 
The rocket was fired into southern Israel late on Oct.4 but hit open ground, the army said.    

The Israeli military said Sept. 3 its air force had attacked a Hamas military position in the Gaza Strip overnight from which gunfire had hit homes in southern Israel.