JERUSALEM, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Two Israelis were killed Monday evening as Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip pelted southern Israel with rockets and mortar shells, a police spokesman told Xinhua.

    According to the spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, an Israeli man was killed in a mortar shell attack in the western Negev, adding that another person was critically injured in the strike.

    The Salah al-Din Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, said they were behind the strike, local news service Ynet reported.

    Meanwhile, a woman was killed in a rocket attack in the city of Ashdod, said Rosenfeld, adding that three others were injured in the attack, one critically and two moderately.

    Local daily Ha'aretz said that the woman died from wounds she sustained when the rocket pounded a bus stop in Ashdod.

    The woman was critically injured when the rocket landed where she was taking shelter, and was later pronounced dead, said the report.

    Ashdod, located some 35 km from Gaza, is the deepest into Israel a Palestinian rocket has stricken.

    Earlier on Monday, an Israeli was also killed and at least ten others wounded by a Palestinian Grad missile which exploded near a construction site in the coastal town of Ashkelon in southern Israel.

    The casualties on the Israeli side came after the Jewish state carried out simultaneous air strikes on Saturday at tens of targets in the Hamas-ruled enclave, so far killing about 320 people, in an operation in response to the continuing rocket attacks at southern Israel.

    Amid worries that Gazan militants would carry out a massive rocket barrage in retaliation following Saturday's raids, Israeli authorities have put communities near the Gaza border on alert and urged local residents to avoid gathering in public sites and stay in shelter rooms.