Air raid sirens were sounded again across southern Israel and two Islamic Jihad members were killed in IDF airstrikes on Gaza as the two sides continued to exchange fire on Wednesday morning.

Around 250 rockets have now been launched towards Israel since the assassination of Islamic Jihad commander Baha Abu al-Ata in Gaza City on Tuesday, Israeli sources asid.

Palestinians put the death toll from Israeli raids at 16 — of whom ten Israel says it has identified as members of terrorist organisations.

There have been no reports of serious casualties in Israel, although two people were lightly injured by shrapnel.

Schools remain closed in border communities after the heaviest bout of fighting seen in the region for months.

Naftali Bennett, Israel’s newly appointed defence minister, said: “Whoever plans to hurt us during the day can never be sure that he will make it through the night.”

Sharren Haskel, a Likud MK and member of the Knesset’s defence committee, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday that Baha Abu al-Ata had been “in the midst of planning a major attack on Israel”.

When Israel passed on intelligence to Europe about a terrorist threat “you don’t question”, she said, but when the threat was targeted at Israelis rather than Europeans, “then you come and question it.”