Israeli aircraft struck terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip Saturday night in response to a Palestinian rocket attack earlier in the day that left one Israeli woman lightly injured.

The Israeli reprisal targeted three Hamas facilities in Gaza, including a weapons manufacturing factory.

Israeli military officials said they would “continue to respond harshly to any attempt to use terror against the State of Israel.”

Terrorist violence from Gaza has been escalating in recent months, prompting fears that Israel may have to launch another large-scale military incursion into the territory that many now feel Israel should not have surrendered.

In other violence, a 21-year-old Palestinian man was shot dead while trying to stab Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint in Samaria on Sunday morning. According to witnesses, there was an argument between the man and one of the soldiers. The young Arab then took a broken glass bottle and tried to stab the soldier. Two other nearby soldiers shot the assailant.

Another stabbing attempt was thwarted on Saturday when a young Palestinian man wielding a large knife was arrested in Judea on suspicion of planning to attack female Israeli soldiers leaving a base near the Etzion Bloc of Jewish communities.