GAZA/JERUSALEM: Eighteen Palestinians, including the wife and child of the Hamas military chief, were killed today as Israel resumed air strikes on Gaza after a 10-day lull following the collapse of ceasefire talks in Cairo, taking the death toll in the conflict past 2,100.
Israel said about 50 rockets had been fired from Gaza yesterday and another 20 today, although no injuries have been reported.
Among the dead were three women, one of them heavily pregnant, and seven children. That number includes the woman's unborn baby, whom medics tried but ultimately failed to save, medics said.
The violence resumed on Tuesday when three rockets struck southern Israel with the Israeli air force hitting back with strikes which continued through the night and into Wednesday.
The first deadly strike killed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif's second wife, Widad, 27, and his seven-month-old son Ali. Rescue workers on today also pulled the bodies of a 48-year-old woman and a 14-year-old boy from the rubble, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.
Shortly before dawn, an air strike hit a home in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, killing eight, among them the pregnant woman, her unborn baby, three children and three men.
Later in the morning, another child, 4, was killed along with a man in his 20s in a strike on Zeitun in southern Gaza City, Qudra said.
Four other men were killed in three separate strikes, two of whom died when a missile hit their motorcycle in the northern town of Beit Lahiya. At their funeral, both were wrapped in green Hamas flags, indicating they were militants.
Separately, a man died of injuries sustained earlier in the conflict, which erupted on July 8.
The hostilities resumed hours before a temporary ceasefire was due to expire.
Talks in Egypt's capital to end the violence broke up without a deal. Israeli delegates said they would return home.
It was not known whether Deif had survived last night's attack, although Hamas' exiled deputy leader Mussa Abu Marzuk was quoted as saying in Cairo that two of the victims were his wife and daughter, the BBC reported.
Deif, accused of ordering suicide bomb attacks in Israel several years ago, has survived a number of assassination attempts, which reportedly left him with severe disabilities.
Israeli Interior Minister Gideon Saar told army radio that he was a "legitimate target" and that if an opportunity arose to eliminate him, it should be taken.