Israel's Gaza strike follows deadly attack

JERUSALEM -- Israeli airstrikes killed four Palestinian militants in Gaza while Palestinians fired rockets into southern Israel, hitting a synagogue and a school and wounding several Israelis in the aftermath of the deadliest attack against Israelis in three years.

Palestinian militants in Gaza launched more than two dozen rockets into Israel on Friday, the Israeli military said. One smashed through a roof of a Jewish seminary, damaging a synagogue in the port city of Ashdod and wounding six Israelis who were standing outside, Israeli emergency services said. One hit an empty school, and another, aimed at the city of Ashqelon, was intercepted by the new Israeli anti-missile system known as Iron Dome.

Israeli aircraft struck several targets in Gaza on Friday in retaliation for the rocket attacks, the military said, killing four Palestinian militants. One strike hit a motorcycle carrying senior militants from the Palestinian group Israel said was behind Thursday's violence. Another five militants were killed Thursday night.

Gunmen who appear to have originated in Gaza and crossed into southern Israel through the Egyptian desert ambushed civilian vehicles traveling on a remote road, killing eight people. Six were civilians, and two were members of Israeli security forces responding to the incursion.

Thursday's attack signaled a new danger for Israel from its border with the Sinai Peninsula, which was always restive but had been kept under control by former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak. He was deposed in February, and the desert of the Sinai Peninsula has become increasingly lawless.

The sudden spike in violence threatened to upset already frayed ties between Israel and Egypt, and escalate the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.