Israeli helicopter gunships attack Gaza after missile hits school bus

Israel shelled the Gaza Strip on Thursday after an anti-tank missile fired out of the Palestinian enclave hit a school bus in Israel, critically wounding a teenage boy on Thursday, according to reports.

The Israeli retaliation shelling, ordered by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in response to the bus strike, killed an elderly man and wounded at least three others, including a 4-year-old girl, according to reports. 

Israeli tanks fired eight shells at an eastern Gaza City neighborhood in the immediate aftermath of the strike on the bus, DPA reported.

An Israeli attack helicopter also machine-gunned a target in Gaza City for the first time since the January 2009 war, according to the Jerusalem Post.

The Israeli military said it had earlier carried out several air strikes in Gaza, targeting smuggling tunnels near the border with Egypt overnight.

Barak said he held Hamas responsible for any attack originating from the Gaza Strip. He reportedly issued a statement saying he had ordered the military to "swiftly take all the necessary steps and respond to the attack." 

Israeli military spokeswoman, Avital Leibovich, said it was not the first time an anti-tank missile was fired from the Strip at Israeli civilians, but it was the first time it had been aimed at a bus, DPA reported.

The bus was reportedly struck outside Kibbutz Sa'ad in the Negev Desert about 3 miles from the Gaza border. The head of the Magen David Adom ambulance service told Israel Radio that helicopters were ferrying the worst of the wounded to hospital, according to the Telegraph.

Palestinian militants later Thursday began firing longer-range rockets into Israel, the Telegraph quoted Palestinian sources as saying. By early evening more than 45 missiles and mortars had hit Israel and Israelis living near the Gaza border were ordered to stay indoors, according to DPA. 

The violence is the latest in an ongoing series of tit-for-tat attacks along the Israel-Gaza border in recent weeks.

In late March, Israeli warplanes launched fresh air strikes in Gaza in response to rocket attacks from Palestinian militants. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the time vowed decisive action against Gaza-based militants, saying: "No state would tolerate ongoing rocket fire on its cities and its citizens, and the state of Israel obviously will not tolerate it."

Apparently in response, militants planted a bomb exploded in a crowded Jerusalem bus station that exploded during rush hour on March 23, killing a woman and wounding 50. 

On April 4, Israel indicted a Palestinian engineer known as the "Rocket Godfather of Hamas" for his leading role in developing missiles for the group for use in attacks on the Jewish state. Israel had reportedly abducted Dirar Abu Sisi as he was traveling in Ukraine and brought him to Israel for interrogation.

Before the present escalation, Israel and Hamas had signaled that they were ready to return to a de facto cease-fire which has kept the border relatively quiet since the end of the 2008-2009 Gaza war.

Israeli President Shimon Peres, meanwhile, defended the Israeli Defense Force strikes Thursday, saying that Gaza had turned into a terror state.

"I was just informed that an Israeli bus carrying students from school was hit by a missile fired from Gaza. This is another example of how Gaza has turned into a terror state," Peres told U.N. Security Council ambassadors during a visit to New York Haaretz reports. "Can the United Nations guarantee that terrorist acts will not happen? None of you would give up on the security of your country, and Israel will also defend itself."

He added: "Hundreds of thousands of mothers and children in southern Israel cannot sleep peacefully at night as a result of the rocket fire from Gaza."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany, said Israel had no intention on tolerating terror attacks that no other country would tolerate.