AP, Jerusalem :
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military on Monday to cut fuel transfers to Gaza in half in response to rocket attacks from the coastal strip, raising tensions along Israel’s southern border in addition to a renewed threat from the north amid reported Israeli strikes on Iranian targets in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.
Netanyahu also instructed his staff to prepare plans for building a new neighborhood in a West Bank settlement where a teenage Israeli girl was killed in an explosion blast last week. Israel said the blast was a Palestinian attack.
The flurry of activity comes amid a massive manhunt by Israeli troops for the 17-year-old’s killers and dire warnings from Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader of an imminent attack, just weeks before an unprecedented repeat Israeli election.
Netanyahu ordered the Gaza measure to take effect immediately and until further notice. The cut is expected to exacerbate the already dire flow of electricity in the impoverished coastal strip. The move follows airstrikes the military carried out overnight in the Gaza Strip, after three rockets were launched from the territory into southern Israel.
The military said the airstrikes included one on the office of a Hamas commander in the northern Gaza Strip. There were no reports of casualties.
Air raid sirens warning of an incoming attack wailed late on Sunday during an outdoor music festival in the Israeli border town of Sderot, sending panicked revelers scurrying for cover. The military said two rockets were intercepted by its missile defense system.
The rocket attack was the latest in a recent uptick following a relative lull that has threatened to unleash another round of fighting along the volatile Gaza-Israel border.
Israel accused the Iranian-backed militant Islamic Jihad group of orchestrating the rocket attacks, as part of Iran’s region-wide campaign of chaos.
“Hostile elements near and far, attempting to ignite a war, are dragging you into violence and destroying the stability and security of your home,” wrote Maj. Gen. Kamil Abu Rukun, the coordinator of government activities in the territories, in a direct message to Gaza residents in Arabic on his Facebook page.
Gaza’s Hamas rulers say that Israel’s slow-moving approach to implementing an unofficial Egyptian-brokered truce aimed at alleviating the enclave’s dire living conditions could lead to further escalation.
