Israeli aircraft launched a strike on the Gaza Strip, killing a militant from the Islamic Jihad group who was allegedly planning a “massive attack” in Israel, the army said.

“This operation disrupts the execution of an attack by Islamic Jihad, a terrorist organization that has been involved in the firing of rockets towards Israeli territory and IDF forces in the past few days,” the army spokesman’s office said in an e-mailed statement.

A medic at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, speaking anonymously as he was not authorized to speak to the press, said a 22-year-old Islamic Jihad militant died after he was hit in an Israeli air strike while riding his motorcycle near the southern town of Khan Younis.

More than 20 rockets and mortar shells have been fired at Israel since Jan. 1, the army said. The military said the alleged plot was aimed at the “heart of Israel,” without giving further details.

Taher al-Noono, a spokesman for Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, said in an e-mailed statement today that it was holding talks with all militant groups in the territory to halt attacks and “keep the calm.”

Hamas, considered a terrorist group by Israel, the U.S. and the European Union, seized control of Gaza in 2007, ending a partnership government with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party after winning parliamentary elections the previous year.

©2011 Bloomberg. All Rights Reserved.