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| A Palestinian man mourns over the body of one of three Palestinian civilians killed in an Israeli airstrike earlier on 5 September 2012. (Photo: AFP - Mahmoud Hams) |
Three Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli fire in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, raising to six the number killed in the past 12 hours, medical sources said.
"We have received three bodies," said Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman for the Hamas-run health ministry, saying the three had been killed by an Israeli tank shell just east of the town of Beit Hanoun.
Qudra said the three were civilians. He said two were brothers – Akram al-Zaanin, 22, and Ihab al-Zaanin, 23. He said the third – Tareq al-Kafarna, 26 – was on his way to work at Beit Hanoun hospital when the shell struck.
The Israeli army said it had fired at a "terrorist squad that was planting an explosive device near the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip. A hit was confirmed," a statement said, indicating that they were targeted by "aircraft, the armored corps and infantry soldiers."
The incident occurred 11 hours after an Israeli airstrike on a car in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza killed three civilians and seriously wounded a fourth person.
An Israeli army spokesperson said the strike targeted "a group of terrorists who were preparing to fire rockets at Israel from the center of the Gaza Strip."
Israel routinely claims to hit militant targets in Gaza, but often the casualties are civilians according to Palestinian witnesses and officials.
Despite an informal truce between Hamas and Israel, the Jewish state regularly launches military assaults on the Gaza Strip, prompting sporadic rocket fire in retaliation.
Hamas has largely refrained from being drawn into a conflict with Israel, despite continued Israeli provocations against the Hamas-held territory.
The last major flare-up was in June, when Israel launched widespread airstrikes against the Gaza Strip, killing 15 Palestinians. Palestinian fighters hit back, firing more than 150 rockets at southern Israel, wounding five people.
Israel has imposed a crippling siege on Gaza since 2007, which UN agencies and human rights groups have slammed as a violation of international law.
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