Palestinian Authority terrorists threw rocks and a firebomb at Jewish motorists in at least two locations in Judea and Samaria Tuesday, but they also widened their activities to include a PA official, whose empty car was riddled with bullets.

Abu Zaida, a senior official for Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement, said that shortly after he parked his car and left it, gunmen shot sprayed it with gunfire, leaving approximately 20 holes in the car.

Attacks on Jews continued unabated and unreported by most media. Cars driven by Jews were damaged by rocks in the Binyamin region of Samaria, while a firebomb was hurled at a Jewish vehicle on Highway 60 between Gush Etzion and Jerusalem.

The Israel Air Force bombed a weapons manufacturing factory and two terror tunnels Tuesday evening in retaliation for a mortar shell attack on soldiers who were “engaging in a counter-terrorism activity,” according to military spokesman  Lt. Col. Peter Lerner.

“The IDF maintains the right to combat terrorists abusing the Gaza Strip as a springboard for such attacks against Israeli civilians and its forces,” he added.

Reporting by Palestinian Authority media, often quoted without verification by foreign media, illustrates why Palestinian Authority Arabs cannot be expected to believe that Israel acts in self-defense.

Gaza sources said the aerial strikes hit “two chicken farms” and a Hamas tunnel, accord to the Bethlehem-based Ma’an News Agency.

It also said a fourth strike bombed an empty Islamic Jihad “training site.”

Earlier in the day, The Jewish Press reported here that a Hamas terrorist was killed and four others were wounded in a “work” explosion.

Hamas has renewed escalation of attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers the past month after several weeks of relative quiet, a possible sign of weakness to divert its residents’ attention from poverty and economic pressure from Egypt in the form of occasionally shutting down the crossing into the northern Sinai from Rafiah.

Last Friday, Hamas marked one year since massive rocket fire on Israel that sparked the IDF’s Pillar of Defense counter-terrorism operation.

Terrorist commanders came out from underground to join a military parade.

Hamas commander Raed Sa’as, appearing in public for the first time in years, said, “Next time you [Israel] will not enjoy security in any spot on our occupied land. Our fighters are more capable, ready and trained. Our plans are more comprehensive and our arsenal is more developed.”

The military parade and escalation in rocket attacks, mortar shelling and planting of bombs near the IDF patrol road draws the attention of Gaza residents away from streets flooded by sewage following a power outage at a treatment facility.

Although Egypt has closed down smuggling tunnels that are a big income source for the Hamas regime as well as a source of goods and merchandise for residents, Palestinian Authority media both in Ramallah and Gaza blamed Israel for the “siege.”

French President Francois Hollande visited the Jerusalem graves of the victims of the attack on a Toulouse Jewish school on Tuesday, accompanied by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and members of the Sandler and Monsonego families.

Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30; his children Gabriel, 6, and Aryeh,3; and Miriam Monsonego, 8, were killed in March 2012 when radical Islamist Mohammed Merah entered the Ozar HaTorah school in the city in southwest France and shot at students and teachers.

The school slayings came a few days after Merah gunned down three French soldiers in two drive-by shootings from a scooter near Toulouse.

Merah was shot dead three days after the school shooting during a standoff with police. He had admitted to the shootings, saying they were in retaliation for Israel’s alleged treatment of Palestinian Authority Arabs.

A Hamas terrorist was killed and four others were injured in an explosion in Gaza City Tuesday morning, where the Hamas website said they were on a “jihad mission.”

The terrorist was identified as 35-year-old Mohammed al-Bahloul.

Hamas stated that he “was martyred after a long bright path of Jihad, hard work, struggle and sacrifice” and that the terrorist organization “reaffirms its commitment and determination to continue the resistance against the belligerent occupation forces.”

A Palestinian Authority escaped a checkpoint inspection and tried to run down a soldier and guards on the road from Maaleh Adumim to Jerusalem shortly after noon Tuesday

A soldier and policemen were slightly injured in the hit-and-run attack.

A soldier at the checkpoint fired and hit the fleeing car, but the driver escaped unhurt. Security officials are searching for the vehicle.

France police are scouring Paris and surrounding areas for a lone gunman who critically wounded a leftwing newspaper’s assistant to a photojournalist Monday, days after gunman broke into CNN’s affiliate and threatened journalists before fleeing. It is not known if the threat on Friday and Monday’s shooting are connected.

The French daily Liberation in Paris said the man entered its offices on Monday with a shotgun and fired twice, hitting the 27-year-old victim in the chest. The gunman later opened fire in front of bank high-rise without injuring anyone.

The Interior Ministry ordered police deployment at offices of all French newspapers.

IDF officers Sunday awarded Second Lt. Yitzchak Maimon, of the religious Netzach Yehuda unit of the Kfir Brigade, for stopping and arresting the 16-year-old Palestinian Authority terrorist who stabbed to death IDF recruit Eden Atias last week.

Maimon acted “according to the principles of a combat soldier in the Kfir Brigade,” said the brigade commander, Col. Asher Ben Lulu.

Atias was sleeping on the bus, which was almost empty of passengers during a break at the Afula bus station. After the terrorists attacked the soldier with multiple stab wounds, he fled through the back door, where Maimon confronted him.

Palestinian Authority terrorists tried to kill Jewish motorists in the area of Shechem, in northern Samaria, Sunday by hurling burning tires on the highway in an attempt to trap vehicles in a ball of flames or force the driver into an accident.

Another terrorist in the same area was caught at a checkpoint with an improvised pipe bomb.

No one was injured in the incidents.