JERUSALEM // Escalating mortar and rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip have prompted Israel to complain to the United Nations.
Israel's military said that it struck three targets in the Hamas-controlled coastal strip on Friday in response to eight mortars and a long-range rocket launched into the southern part of the country.
Reuters reported that Israeli warplanes destroyed an empty building in Gaza, injuring three women and a child. The other two strikes, near the southern town of Khan Younis, "destroyed" militant "smuggling tunnels" under construction, a military spokesperson was quoted as saying.
Israel's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, reportedly told his UN ambassador to lodge a complaint to Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, and the Security Council after discovering that incendiaries launched from Gaza contained phosphorous.
"This is another reminder to the international community that Israel's southern residents are forced to live in constant fear in the face of relentless terror under the patronage of the Hamas regime in Gaza," Mr Lieberman was quoted as saying by the Israeli daily Haaretz.
A Palestinian militant group, the Popular Resistance Committees, claimed responsibility for firing mortars in response to an Israeli attack that killed two members of another group, the Army of Islam.