Two Israeli civilians and seven Palestinians were killed on Wednesday in an explosion of violence around the Gaza Strip border after Palestinian commandos stormed into Israel. The attack came after an early morning gunbattle left an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian gunman dead, shattering a month-long lull that followed a bloody Israeli blitz on Gaza aimed at halting rocket fire.
The dead Palestinians included both militants and civilians, one of them a teenage boy. The Israeli army said Palestinian fighters breached the border near the Nahal Oz fuel terminal, which provides Gaza with its fuel supplies, and moved into Israel under the cover of a barrage of 15 mortar rounds.
The militants killed two Israeli civilians in their 30s, according to the Magen David Adom rescue service, in what the army called a "failed abduction attempt."