Israeli fire kills five in Gaza and the West Bank

CAIRO/GAZA: Israeli airstrikes killed at least four Palestinians in Gaza on Thursday, while soldiers shot and killed a 15-year-old child during an army raid in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials said. One person was killed in a strike in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis in which several others were wounded, local medics said. Israel’s military said it had targeted militants transporting munitions, who it said had posed a threat to Israeli soldiers. Three others, including a rescue worker, were killed in a separate strike in Maghazi, a Palestinian refugee camp in the Deir al Balah area in central Gaza, health officials said. Israel’s military had no immediate comment on that strike. Israel has carried out repeated strikes on Gaza since a US-brokered ceasefire came into effect in October. Both Israel and Hamas have accused each other of ceasefire violations. There is no mechanism for enforcing the ceasefire. Four Israeli soldiers and more than 780 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire started. At Gaza City’s Al Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest medical facility, relatives stood among mourners gathered to bury five people, including three children, who were killed on Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike on a northern Gaza town. “There is no ceasefire, no truce, nothing at all, ” said Mohammed Baalousha, a relative of one of the victims. “There is no safety in any area. ”

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