Late last week Israel launched a targeted air strike, killing Zohair al-Qaisi, militant leader of the Popular Resistance Committee, claiming the group was planning a terrorist strike in Israel. Over the next few days, militant groups in Gaza launched hundreds of rockets into southern Israel in retaliation, and Israel responded with new rounds of air strikes. Israel also deployed an anti-missile system known as Iron Dome, claiming to have shot down more than 40 rockets. Egypt stepped in to help broker a cease-fire that began yesterday, and held for about a day, but both sides have since launched limited attacks. In all, eight people in Israel have been wounded in the fighting, and at least 27 Palestinians have been killed.
Violence Flares Up Between Gaza and Israel
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A rocket launches from the Israeli anti-missile system known as the Iron Dome, in order to intercept a rocket fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip in Ashdod, Israel, on March 11, 2012. #
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A Hamas policeman inspects the remains of a vehicle after it was targeted by an Israeli air strike that killed the head of the Popular Resistance Committees militant group in Gaza City, on March 9, 2012. The PRC said General Secretary Zohair al-Qaisi was one of two Palestinians killed in the strike, along with fellow-member Mahmud Halani, hours after Palestinians fired mortar rounds into Israel. #
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A Palestinian tries to extinguish a fire after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on March 10, 2012. Despite Egyptian efforts to mediate a cease-fire, both sides remained defiant with Palestinians firing more than 100 rockets, some striking major cities in southern Israel, and the military responding with the targeted killings of more than 15 militants. #
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An Israeli woman stands outside a damaged building, following a rocket attack from the nearby Gaza Strip, in Ashdod, Israel, on March 12, 2012. The UN and EU appealed for calm as cross border rocket strikes continued into a fourth day between the Gaza Strip and Israel. #
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An Israeli army sapper examines the remains of a mortar shell fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip that landed in a kibbutz on the Israel-Gaza border, on March 10, 2012. #
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One of two Islamic Jihad militants who were killed in an Israeli airstrike on March 12, 2012 is transported into the morgue of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza city, as Israeli warplanes pounded Gaza for a fourth day, killing six more Palestinians, including the two activists who were identified by the Palestinian group as Bassam al-Ajla and Mohammed Dahir. #
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Relatives of Ayoub Asalya, 12, view his body in the morgue of Kamal Edwan hospital in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, on March 11, 2012, following a recent Israeli air raid. #
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Israeli store owner Bary Mike cleans up after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip by Palestinian militants landed nearby in the port city of Ashdod, on March 13, 2012. #
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An Israeli medic helps a woman in shock after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip landed nearby in the southern city of Ashdod, on March 12, 2012, causing material damage and wounding lightly an elderly woman. #
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Israeli military drones fly over Gaza City on March 12, 2012. The cross-border violence, touched off by Israel's killing of a top militant leader, has been the worst exchange of fire between Israel and the Hamas-ruled territory in years. #
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Israeli children play outside a sewage pipe which is ready to be used as a protective shelter during rocket attacks fired by Palestinians militants from Gaza in the community of Nitzan, Israel, on March 11, 2012. #
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A rocket is launched from the Israeli Iron Dome anti-missile system, to intercept a rocket fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip in Ashdod, Israel, on March 11, 2012. #
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Israeli boys look for steel ball bearings in a pock-marked wall of a school in the southern city of Beersheba, after it was damaged by a rocket fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza, on March 11, 2012. #
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A Home Front Command soldier checks data on a computer at the site where a Grad rocket, which was fired from Gaza, landed in Netivot in southern Israel, on March 13, 2012. #
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Palestinian relatives grieve over the body of Nayef Qarmut, a teenager killed on his way to school, as he is prepared for burial at the morgue in Beit Lahiya, on March 12, 2012, in the Gaza Strip. Earlier reports claimed Qarmut had been killed by an Israeli military drone strike, but the Israeli military denied it had conducted any air strikes in northern Gaza at that time. #
Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images
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