TEL AVIV—Israel and Gaza settled into an uneasy truce Sunday after their most intense fighting since the 2014 war over the weekend, reflecting pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to find a way to end Hamas’s campaign of attacks across the border.
Israel’s military struck dozens of Hamas targets in Gaza during an air campaign on Saturday that Mr. Netanyahu said was “the hardest blow” dealt to Hamas since Israel’s ground war four years ago, which was in response to an escalation of mortar and rocket fire from Gaza.
The Israeli military said the targets included a Hamas battalion headquarters in the northern Gaza Strip, a series of military tunnels and an abandoned Gaza City building that it said was used as a training facility for urban warfare.
The airstrikes came after an Israeli soldier was wounded by a grenade during border protests on Friday and Gaza militants launched more than 200 rockets and mortars into Israel overnight Friday and through Saturday.
“Our policy is clear: Whoever hurts us, we will hit them with great strength,” Mr. Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting Sunday. “We are not prepared to accept any attacks against us, and we will respond appropriately.”
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Two Palestinians were killed by an Israeli airstrike and three Israelis were wounded by shelling from Gaza.
The back-and-forth appeared to calm down after Hamas announced an Egypt-mediated cease-fire. Though Israeli officials wouldn’t admit to being party to a cease-fire agreement, they said strikes in Gaza would continue only if more provocations arose. On Sunday afternoon, Israel said its aircraft targeted a Hamas squad in Gaza preparing to launch arson attacks at Israel.
Israel’s air bombardment marked a hardening position on Gaza from Mr. Netanyahu, who has faced domestic criticism for not responding more forcefully to rocket and mortar fire and incendiary kites and balloons that have terrorized the population of southern Israel.
Many rockets and mortars are intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, but they set off air-raid sirens and force Israelis to hunker down in shelters. The kites and balloons aren’t generally a deadly threat, but they have damaged thousands of acres of Israeli farmland and presented images of an Israeli region under siege.
Israeli politicians have pressured Mr. Netanyahu to treat arson attacks as a military threat that can be responded to with force.
“I’m against any cease-fire that doesn’t include a complete cessation of the flaming kites and balloons,” Naftali Bennett, Israel’s education minister and a member of Israel’s national security cabinet, said Sunday. He hopes to replace Mr. Netanyahu as prime minister in the future.
Mr. Netanyahu on Sunday denied that Israel had reached a cease-fire that would allow arson attacks to continue.
Last Monday, in a bid to pressure Hamas to end the kite launches and artillery fire, Mr. Netanyahu closed the Kerem Shalom border crossing that is the main route for commercial goods and humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip from Israel. Hamas called closing the border crossing “a crime against humanity” and the United Nations urged Israel to reverse the decision, warning it could have negative consequences.
The Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza have exchanged mortar and rocket fire intermittently since May amid weekly Palestinians demonstrations at the border fence that have often been violent. The Gazans have stepped up calls for an end to Israel’s blockade and to allow them to return to land from which Palestinians fled during the 1948 war with Israel.
More than 100 Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured by Israeli fire since the protests began. Israel maintains many of those it killed were Hamas militants and says its security concerns from Hamas necessitate its blockade of Gaza.
A flare-up similar to this weekend’s between Israel and Gaza occurred at the end of May, with Hamas declaring an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire and Israeli officials saying calm from Gaza would be reciprocated by Israel.
—Abu Bakr Bashir in Cairo and Dov Lieber in Tel Aviv contributed to this article.
Write to Felicia Schwartz at Felicia.Schwartz@wsj.com
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