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Israeli jets have staged three air strikes over Gaza, hours after a bomb struck a crowded bus stop in West Jerusalem, killing at least one person and wounding 30 in what authorities said was the first major attack in the city in several years.
Palestinian sources said early on Thursday two of the raids targeted the city of Gaza while another was aimed at a tunnel near the Egyptian frontier at Rafah. No casualties were reported.
An Israeli defense spokeswoman confirmed the sorties that the air force targeted two tunnels at the south of the Gaza Strip and a target in Gaza.
Jerusalem blast
The strikes came after a bomb ripped through a Jerusalem bus, killing one and wounding more than 30 on Wednesday.
Scores of ambulances converged on the area near the central bus station as rescuers removed bloodied people from the area on stretchers on Wednesday.
Al Jazeera's Nisreen El-Shamayleh, reporting from Jerusalem, said that one person, a 60-year-old woman, died following the explosion.
Micky Rosenfeld, the foreign press spokesman for the Israel Police, told Al Jazeera that a device in a bag that was left in a phone booth near the bus station exploded when the bus passed.
"This was not a suicide attack," Rosenfeld said.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said that Israel would act aggressively and "responsibly" after the attack in Jerusalem.
Yitzhak Aharonovich, Israel's public security minister, told Channel 2 TV that the bomb was about one to two kilograms and was planted in a small bag on the sidewalk. He said security services were on alert for additional attacks.
Crowded area
The attack occurred near the main entrance to Jerusalem, next to the city's central bus station, an area that is crowded with travelers and passers-by at all hours of the day.
The blast reverberated throughout Jerusalem and blew out the windows of two crowded buses.
Police, accompanied by sniffer dogs, broke into cars near the site to search for evidence and possible additional explosives.
Bombings have been rare in Jerusalem in the past several years. Palestinians carried out dozens of bombings in the city at the height of an uprising that began in 2000.
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera''s senior political analyst, said "tensions in Israel have been high in the past 48 hours".
Gaza deaths
At least eight Palestinians, including children, were killed in Israeli mortar attacks and airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
In response to the attack in Jerusalem, Hamas in the Gaza Strip said it was seeking to reverse the recent spike in violence with Israel.
"We stress that our constant position in the government is to protect stability and to work in order to restore the conditions on ground that used to be dominant in previous weeks," Taher Al-Nono, a Hamas spokesman, said.
Islamic Jihad said it was not responsible for the blast in Jerusalem.
But Khader Habib, a spokesman, said the group "applauds all efforts to respond to the crimes committed daily against our people".
PHOTO CAPTION
Municipal workers stand in a bus stop near the scene of an explosion in Jerusalem March 23, 2011.
Al-Jazeera
