Four children killed in Gaza raid

[TriWooOx]

At least seven Palestinians, including a mother and her four young children, have been killed by the Israeli military in northern Gaza, medics say.

They died when a missile hit their house in Beit Hanoun during an Israeli incursion. In two separate incidents, a militant and a farmer were killed.

The Israeli military said its aircraft had attacked a group of gunmen who had fired at an army patrol in the area.

The area is often used by Palestinian militants to launch rockets at Israel.

Clashes between Israeli ground forces and Palestinian militants on Sunday in nearby Beit Lahiya left a 14-year-old girl dead and eight others injured.

On Friday, the Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas, proposed a six-month "period of quiet" in Gaza, which it said could then be extended to the West Bank.

Israel dismissed the proposal as a ruse to allow Hamas to "re-arm and re-group".

Snipers

Israeli ground forces moved into the Gaza Strip early on Monday morning and entered Beit Hanoun, not far from the border.

During the incursion, a missile had smashed through the ceiling of one family's one-storey house while they were having breakfast, witnesses said.

"They were eating and they were hit," a neighbour said.

A mother and four of her children - two girls and two boys aged between one and six - were killed, doctors at a local hospital said.

Several other people were injured by the blast, some of them critically.

A militant from Islamic Jihad and a farmer were also killed during the Israeli incursion in Beit Hanoun.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the air force and army had attacked gunmen who fired upon its troops during an operation in the area launched to "ensure that rocket crews, snipers and tunnel diggers are kept away from the border fence".

Hamas said one of its fighters had earlier shot an Israeli solder in Beit Hanoun. The Israeli military confirmed a soldier was slightly wounded.

More than 400 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip in the last five months, many of them civilians.  

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 370502.stm