Israeli air strikes killed five Palestinians, including a mother and child, in the Gaza Strip yesterday as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed to wage a "war" to stop rocket attacks on the Jewish state. An earlier air strike killed a militant leader and his wife.
Militants in the Hamas-controlled territory have fired close to 100 rockets at southern Israel in the past two days following the killing of 18 Palestinians in some of the heaviest fighting in months in the Gaza Strip.