Israel Raids on Gaza Leave 5 Dead, 40 Hurt as Mortar Fire Kills Israeli Child
Israeli air strikes killed five Palestinians in the center of the Gaza Strip on Friday, two in Deir al-Balah and three in Nusseirat, the local emergency services said.
One strike in Nusseirat hit a house, killing two men aged 24 and 22, while in Deir al-Balah it landed in open farmland, Ashraf al-Qudra told Agence France-Presse.
A drone strike later targeted a 45-year-old man in Nusseirat who died of his injuries in hospital shortly afterwards, Qudra's office said.
The identities of those killed in Deir al-Balah were not immediately clear.
Hostilities in the six-week war between Israel and Hamas resumed on Tuesday as Egyptian-brokered truce talks collapsed.
The Palestinian emergency services say 76 people have died in Gaza since then. Four people in Israel have sustained shrapnel injuries as a result of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel on Friday.
At least 2,092 Palestinians have been killed since July 8, of whom the United Nations has identified 70 percent as civilians.
UNICEF said Friday that at least 15 Palestinian children had been killed in Gaza in the last 48 hours, bringing to at least 478 the number of Palestinian children reported killed since the war began.
Later on Friday, an Israeli child was killed by mortar fire from Gaza, the army said, bringing the number of civilians killed in Israel during the 46-day conflict with Hamas to four.
"A mortar hit near a kindergarten in the Sdot Negev regional council, killing an Israeli child," a statement from the army read.
Police said the boy was four years old, making him the first child in Israel to be killed by projectiles fired by Palestinian militants since July 8.
Three other civilians have been killed in Israel in that period, as have 64 soldiers in and around the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed harsh retribution against Hamas over the deadly mortar fire.
"Hamas will pay a heavy price for this attack," Netanyahu's spokesman Ofir Gendelman cited the premier as saying on his Twitter account, adding that the Israeli army and Shin Bet internal security service would "intensify ops against Hamas until the goal of #ProtectiveEdge is achieved."
"Netanyahu sends his condolences to the family of the 4-year-old boy that was killed this afternoon by a mortar round fired by Hamas," Gendelman wrote.
Late Friday, a powerful Israeli air strike leveled a house in Gaza City, wounding 40 Palestinians, local emergency services said.
Witnesses said a drone fired two rockets at the two-story property before an F16 warplane dropped a large bomb. It was the home of a family that included members of Hamas, witnesses said.
Emergency services told AFP that 40 people from the building and neighboring buildings were wounded in the strike.
A witness at the site said the family had evacuated the building before the attack and that the injured came from neighboring homes.
The air raid came shortly after Netanyahu pledged that "Hamas will pay a heavy price."
Source: Agence France Presse
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