Israeli airstrike, naval gunboats and tanks carried on through dawn in southern Gaza Strip on Thursday morning killing 11 Palestinians and leaving many injured, according to Al Jazeera. Also on Thursday, Israeli media reported that three Israelis have been killed in Southern Israel.

Speaking on Wednesday night, hours after a wave of air strikes pounded targets in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, killing Ahmad Jabari, Netanyahu vowed that Israel would not tolerate any further rocket fire on its territory while the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, issued a communiqué saying Israel had “opened the gates of hell on itself.”

Ahmed Jabari, the head of the military wing of the Palestinian group Hamas that controls Gaza, was killed on Wednesday when his car was reportedly targeted during Israeli air strikes on the territory that followed a wave of rocket attacks against Israel from Gaza.

Jabari is the most senior Hamas official to be killed since an Israeli invasion of Gaza four years ago. Hamas said it had fired at least 20 rockets into Israel in retaliation for Jabari’s killing.

Meanwhile, Egypt recalled its ambassador from Israel on Wednesday hours after the death Hamas’s top military commander, presidential spokesman Yasser Ali said.

The strikes came after five days of rising tensions along the Gaza border which began on Saturday when Palestinian fighters fired an anti-tank rocket at an army jeep, sparking Israeli fire which killed seven.

Meanwhile, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke by telephone on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi about the escalating violence in Gaza and southern Israel, while the Security Council met in a closed, late-night session on the situation.

According to a readout from the Secretary-General’s spokesperson, Mr. Ban expressed his concern to Mr. Netanyahu about the deteriorating situation in southern Israel and Gaza, which includes an alarming escalation of indiscriminate rocket fire from Gaza into Israel and the targeted killing by Israel of a Hamas military operative in Gaza.