Israel Launches Attack Against Hamas

The Israeli soldier killed on Friday was the first to die in combat with Gaza since the 2014 war, Israel’s military said. His identity hadn’t been released Friday evening.

Israel’s military said the strikes in Gaza were ongoing. It had hit 40 Hamas targets, including what it said were two Hamas battalion headquarters. Militants also fired three rockets from Gaza into Israel on Friday, Israel’s military said, including two that were intercepted by the country’s Iron Dome system.

Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman blamed the escalation on Hamas, the militant group that rules the Gaza Strip. There have been several small exchanges of fire this week after a shaky truce was reached last weekend, but by Friday that calm had ended.

“We are endeavoring to be measured and responsible, but the leaders of Hamas, by using force, are leading us into a situation in which there is no choice, a situation in which we will have to embark on a wide and painful military operation,” Mr. Lieberman said.

Israel has said it wants to see Hamas stop launching flaming kites and balloons from Gaza as well as cease rocket and mortar fire and weekly violent protests at the border.

Since March, Palestinians have regularly protested at the fence dividing Gaza from Israel—calling for an end to Israel’s blockade and to be allowed to return to the land from which they fled during the 1948 war with Israel.

More than 140 Palestinians have been killed, including one this Friday, and thousands injured in violent clashes with Israel’s military during the weekly demonstrations. Some of those protesters have charged the fence, rolling burning tires and firing at Israeli forces. They also have thrown Molotov cocktails and flown flaming kites that have caused several fires.

Israel maintains many of those it has killed were Hamas militants and says its security concerns necessitate its blockade of Gaza.

Mr. Lieberman said Israel is in discussions about the violence in Gaza through intermediaries including Egypt and the United Nations but isn’t speaking directly with members of the militant group.

“Everyone in Gaza needs to step back from the brink. Not next week. Not tomorrow. Right now,” the U.N.’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East,

Nickolay Mladenov, said in a tweet on Friday. “Those who want to provoke Palestinians and Israelis into another war must not succeed.”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen Gadi Eizenkot and Mr. Lieberman at the military’s headquarters in Tel Aviv to discuss the escalating tensions in Gaza.

—Abu Bakr Bashir in Cairo and Dov Lieber in Tel Aviv contributed to this article.