The United States urged Israel Thursday to avoid the loss of innocent life in the violence-wracked Gaza Strip, but defended the Jewish state's right to strike against rocket and mortar attacks from Islamic militants.

"Certainly they have every right to act in their self-defense and it is well documented the Kassam rocket attacks have been coming out of Gaza and are unabated at this point," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

"In exercising their right to self-defense, we encourage Israel, as we do with our own armed forces -- to make every effort to avoid any harm to civilians."

The Israelis have answered Islamic militants' rocket attacks with raids on Gaza, which have killed 26 people over three days.

More than 125 people, mostly militants, have died in Gaza in the strikes since Israelis and Palestinians formally relaunched the Middle East peace process in late November, but some Gaza civilians also have been caught in the crossfire.

The upsurge in Gaza violence comes despite renewed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians set to start Monday on some of the most intractable issues of their decades-long conflict.