http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/world/middleeast/25mideast.html?_r=2

Palestinian militants from the Al Nasser Salah al Din Brigades, an armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, prepared al Nasser rockets to be fired into Israel from east of Gaza City on Wednesday.

JERUSALEM – Palestinian militants from Gaza increased the range and intensity of their rocket fire against Israel on Wednesday as the Israeli security cabinet considered options that included broader military action or efforts to renew a truce that recently expired.

One militant from Hamas, the Islamic group that controls Gaza, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza on Wednesday evening. The Israeli military said that it had attacked a squad that had earlier fired mortar shells at Israel.

More than 60 rockets and mortar shells were fired at southern Israel by the afternoon, the Israeli military said. The rockets slammed into the Israeli border town of Sderot, the yard of a house and a water park in the coastal city of Ashkelon and an Israeli factory at Nir Oz near the Gaza border, and they hit a house outside the Western Negev town of Netivot.

The strikes caused extensive damage and widespread panic among the residents but no serious injuries. Scores of adults and children were treated for shock, the emergency medical service said.

The security cabinet meeting lasted about five hours, but no details were made public regarding any decisions about Gaza. An official spokesman for the Israeli government, Mark Regev, suggested that a renewal of mutual calm was possible but that Israel’s patience was running out.

Israel “will answer quiet with quiet,” Mr. Regev said, “but will answer attacks with a response designed to protect our people.” Apparently preparing public opinion abroad for possible military retaliation, he said the sole responsibility for the deterioration in the south lay with Hamas.

The Israeli president, Shimon Peres, visited Sderot on Wednesday and lighted Hanukkah candles with local children and residents at a community center.

The military wing of Hamas said in a statement that the rocket fire was “a response to Zionist aggression in Gaza and West Bank” and to the economic embargo that Israel had imposed on Gaza.

An Israeli force killed three Hamas gunmen on Tuesday in a clash close to the border barrier in northern Gaza. The military said they were spotted laying explosives. Hamas said two more members of its military wing were killed after carrying out a “jihadi” mission on Wednesday near Khan Yunis in southern Gaza. The Israeli military denied that there had been any army activity at that time, and it seemed that the two were killed by their own explosives.

A six-month Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza expired last Friday. On Tuesday, Hamas said that Egypt and other mediators had been in touch to discuss another period of calm. Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas official, suggested that Hamas would consider renewing the truce if border crossings were opened to allow the regular transfer of goods into Gaza.

The intensified rocket fire on Wednesday might have been intended to pressure Israel and Egypt to step up efforts for a new truce.

At the same time, Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups have warned of a harsh response should Israel decide to embark on a broad military operation in Gaza, and Wednesday’s fire gave a taste of what could come.

Some Israeli officials have called for tough military action, but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have so far maintained a policy of restraint. Defense officials have repeatedly warned that a military invasion of Gaza would be costly in lives on both sides and would not guarantee an end to the rocket fire.

Most of the rockets fired out of Gaza are locally made, short-range projectiles that fall within a few miles of the border. At least two of those fired Wednesday were imported Katyusha-type rockets with a longer range. Ashkelon, which lies about 10 miles north of Gaza, has been hit occasionally in the past. Attacks on Netivot, about six miles east of the Gaza border, have been rare.

Yuval Diskin, chief of Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, said while briefing the Israeli cabinet earlier this week that the Hamas military wing had used the six-month lull to improve its firing abilities and was now able to reach the outskirts of Beersheba and the port city of Ashdod.

The goods crossings on the Gaza border have been almost completely sealed since the truce began to break down in early November. Israel had said it would allow about 40 trucks of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza on Wednesday, but it canceled those plans as a result of the heavy rocket and mortar fire.

Taghreed El-Khodary contributed reporting from Gaza.