GAZA CITY/ OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: An Israeli Cabinet minister reportedly called for a major military push into Gaza Tuesday.The call came after Israeli warplanes raided the Gaza Strip early Tuesday, one day after Palestinian militants fired a rocket into Israel, wounding a woman.

Israeli public radio and state-run Channel One TV reported Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aaronovitch, of the hawkish Yisrael Beitenu party, as saying: “The steady shower of missiles” from Gaza could not be tolerated and Israel must respondwith a “broad military action.”

Neither broadcaster immediately aired soundbites of the comments.

Late Monday a rocket fired from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip crashed into southern Israel’s Negev desert and a woman who was at a graveside in a cemetery was hit by shrapnel.

The past month has seen an increase in rockets and other projectiles fired at Israel from Gaza after several months of calm following a flare-up in April when an anti-tank missile hit an Israeli school bus, killing a teenager.

Israel responded to that attack with a series of airstrikes that have killed at least 19 Palestinians in the deadliest violence since Israel’s devastating 22-day assault on Gaza over New Year 2009.

Early Tuesday, witnesses and the Israeli military said warplanes raided the Gaza Strip, targeting a tunnel dug under the border between the south of the Strip and Egypt, near Rafah.

The Israeli army confirmed the target, saying that “aircraft attacked a tunnel used by smugglers.”

Two explosions also shook Gaza City. The source of the blasts was not immediately clear.