The body of a suspected Palestinian gunman killed in an Israeli airstrike is carried through the streets of Rafah. The killing came at the end of a five day surge of violence which claimed the lives of a dozen Palestinians and one Israeli. A barrage of rocket and mortar fire from Gaza - mainly by the Islamic Jihad group - was answered by a series of Israeli airstrikes on militants. The border area has been largely quiet since midnight Sunday, following an Egyptian-brokered truce. Residents of the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon fear the ceasefire may be short lived. (SOUNDBITE) (Hebrew) ASHKELON RESIDENT BAT SHEVA COHEN: "It's scary as hell, we can't sleep quietly. I feel like I'm in the army base over there, as if I was a soldier on the border. I'm helpless. I have young children, I have children in university and they call me all the time asking 'Mom, what's going on?'" After visiting the family of a man killed, the head of the Israeli parliament's Defence and Foreign Affairs Committee says Israel must strike a decisive blow against the militants. (SOUNDBITE) (Hebrew) ISRAELI LAWMAKER SHAUL MOFAZ, HEAD OF PARLIAMENT DEFENCE AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: "The blow that Israel needs to give the Jihad and Hamas organisations in the Gaza Strip must be decisive, determined and firm, in order to prevent the continuation of shooting and the hurting of citizens of the state of Israel. There is no other state in the world that would have allowed more than a million of its citizens to be daily hostages of terror organisations. This thing must stop immediately." The violence erupted after weeks of a relative lull surrounding the October 18 prisoner swap, in which Israel released 477 detained Palestinians in exchange for soldier Gilad Shalit. Nick Rowlands, Reuters.
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