Gaza father, daughter hurt in Israeli raid

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GAZA CITY, Dec 11, (agencies): A Palestinian father and his daughter were wounded in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City early Sunday, Palestinian medics said. The two were hurt when their home was hit in a raid that apparently targeted a neighbouring building in the Zeitun neighbourhood. The strike followed days of rising tensions between Gaza-based militants and the Jewish state, with groups in the coastal territory lobbing a barrage of rockets into southern Israel and the Israeli military launching a series of air raids. In a statement, the Israeli military confirmed an early morning air strike which it said "targeted a weapon manufacturing site in the northern Gaza Strip." "Direct hits were confirmed and secondary explosions were identified," the statement added. "The site was targeted in response to the ongoing rocket fire from the Gaza Strip." The Israeli military said 19 rockets had been fired into Israel since Thursday, when Israel carried out an air strike targeting two militants it said were planning to attack Israeli soldiers and civilians. Syria activists call strike, Homs fears grow Activists called a general strike on Sunday to step up the pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime as fears grew of an "invasion" of the besieged protest hub of Homs. In a civil disobedience campaign, anti-regime protesters were organising sit-ins, the closure of shops and universities, and the strike. The Local Coordination Committees, which organises protests on the ground in Syria, has predicted the campaign would snowball, and said the strike was "the first step in an overall civil disobedience" campaign to overthrow the regime. But the opposition Syrian National Council and activists have warned of a looming bloody final assault on the city of Homs in central Syria. Witnesses in Homs, besieged by government troops, have reported a buildup of troops and pro-regime "shabiha" militiamen in armoured vehicles who have set up more than 60 checkpoints, the SNC said. Lebanon UN attack a message from Syria The bombing that wounded five French UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon was a message from Syria, pro-Western opposition leader and ex-premier Saad Hariri tweeted Sunday. "Another message from Bashar" al-Assad, Hariri wrote on Twitter of the Syrian president whose regime has killed at least 4,000 people, according to the United Nations, in its crackdown on dissent since mid-March. "Another Syrian message," added Hariri, who has been living abroad for several months.