An Israeli strike killed two married couples and their four children in Gaza City on Sunday, setting their home on fire, Reuters reported, citing health authorities in the strip of the same name, BTA reported.
Local medics explained that the attack in the "Sabra" neighborhood in the central city of the Palestinian enclave killed Firas al-Masri, his wife Salsabel, their three daughters and their son.
The Israeli army confirmed the strike, noting that the target was a fighter from the radical Palestinian group "Hamas" and that it is still investigating the outcome of the attack.
At the same time, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that in strikes since Friday it has eliminated three fighters from "Hamas" and "Islamic Jihad", two of whom participated in the unprecedented cross-border attack on Israeli territory and the taking of hostages on October 7, 2023, which began the two-year war in the Gaza Strip.
With the family killed today, the number of Palestinian victims of Israeli strikes in Gaza since October last year, when a ceasefire was signed between Israel and "Hamas", has now exceeded 1,150 people, most of them civilians, Reuters reports, based on information from health authorities in the coastal territory. Four Israeli soldiers were killed during the same period.
"Hamas" usually does not disclose the exact number of its fighters killed. The ceasefire ended major fighting, but did not stop the almost daily Israeli attacks, whose targets, according to the IDF, are fighters and facilities of the armed groups in Gaza, Reuters writes.
In the attack by the Palestinian armed groups in 2023, 250 hostages were taken prisoner, and the victims on Israeli territory were about 1,200, according to Israeli data.
According to the Hamas Health Ministry, more than 73,000 Palestinians were killed in the retaliatory Israeli offensive. Almost the entire population of two million of the enclave now lives in a small area under Hamas control, mostly in tents or destroyed buildings, Reuters notes.