Gaza City, January 22 (RHC)-- Israeli forces have launched another airstrike on the blockaded Gaza Strip, with initial reports indicating there have been at least two deaths. In the attack, which occurred in the early hours of Wednesday, an Israeli fighter jet targeted a vehicle in the city of Beit Hanoun in northeast Gaza.

Residents and medics in Beit Hanoun said the strike killed two members of Islamic Jihad resistance group. According to eyewitnesses, the men were sitting in the parked car when the missile fired from the aircraft hit it.

The attack happened hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to attack Gaza. He promised to teach the Hamas government in the coastal enclave a lesson following an earlier rocket attack on an Israeli target.

The Hamas government has already deployed forces in Gaza to preserve a 2012 ceasefire. Tel Aviv says the onslaught was in retaliation for the rocket attacks. Israel has been pounding Gaza despite the Egyptian-mediated truce that ended Israel's deadly eight-day war on the coastal enclave.