GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Rockets killed three people in Israel on Thursday soon after three militants died in an air strike, as Israel pressed a vast Gaza operation, which began with a hit on a Hamas chief.

As Israeli warplanes pounded Gaza in an operation launched as the Jewish state prepares for a January general election, the United Nations (UN) Security Council held an emergency summit over the bloodshed, which has so far left 11 Palestinians and three Israelis dead.

The violence sparked a furious response from Egypt’s Islamist administration, which has close ties with Gaza’s ruling Hamas movement, with Cairo recalling its ambassador in protest at Israel’s killing of Hamas military chief Ahmed Jaabari.

Following the killing, Israel staged more than 100 air strikes on Gaza, Hamas officials said, as militant groups pummeled the Jewish state with more than 130 rockets, which on Thursday morning killed three Israelis, police said.

Police said that at least 130 rockets had been fired since Israel killed Jaabari in a strike on a car in Gaza City on Wednesday afternoon.

“All the major cities in southern Israel were hit, and the majority of the more serious damage was in Beersheva,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said, adding police had raised the level of alert across Israel “in order to deal with the possibility of terror attacks.”

Schools within 40 kilometers of Gaza were closed, and those living within seven kilometers of the strip had been told not to go to work, he said.

In Gaza, Palestinian medics said that three Hamas militants were killed in an early morning strike near the southern city of Khan Yunis, raising to 11 the number of Palestinians killed since the hit on Jaabari on Wednesday.

“Eleven people have been killed and 115 people injured,” Rosenfeld said.

Among the dead were five Hamas militants, two children, a woman and an elderly man, he said. The identities of the other two were not immediately clear.

“If it becomes necessary, we are prepared to expand the operation,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Wednesday evening, several hours after the start of the operation which has been codenamed Pillar of Defense.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that the operation was to strengthen Israel’s deterrence, damage militant groups’ rocket-firing capabilities and stamp out attacks on Israel.

Jaabari’s death sparked fury in Gaza, with Hama’s armed wing warning saying that by killing its leader Israel had “opened the gates of hell on itself.”

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said that the strike was tantamount to a “declaration of war.”

In New York, the UN Security Council held an emergency 90-minute session to discuss the crisis, with Arab states pushing for a strong condemnation, but the US envoy strongly defending Israel’s right to self-defense in the face of Palestinian rocket fire.

Amid fears of a regional flareup over the confrontation, US President Barack Obama called Netanyahu and Morsi in a bid to de-escalate the conflict.

And UN chief Ban Ki-moon also phoned both leaders, urging Netanyahu “not to provoke a new cycle of bloodshed.”

Britain urged restraint and Russia said it was “very concerned.”

The air strikes capped five days of rising tension in and around Gaza, which saw Israel kill seven Palestinians and militants fire more than 120 rockets over the border, injuring eight.