JERUSALEM
Gazan authorities said at least five people were killed by Israeli fire on Monday, including two children. Two Palestinians were killed at dawn when a tent was bombed in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, according to the civil defense rescue service, which operates under Hamas authority.
A 10-year old girl was also killed by Israeli artillery fire north of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, according to the civil defense and the city’s Nasser Hospital. A four-year old was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, the civil defense said, adding that an “entire residential block was damaged as a result of the bombing” and that a mother and her child were rescued from under the rubble of another house. One person was killed and five others were injured in another airstrike in Khan Yunis, the rescue service told.
In a separate incident, a security source in Gaza City told that “Israeli warplanes fired three missiles at a water desalination plant in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood … destroying it.” Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem condemned the bombing, saying it was a “further attempt to deprive (Gazans) of all means of survival.”
In response to an inquiry, the army said it did not target the desalination plant, but rather a nearby Hamas weapons storage facility, one of two such depots it struck on Monday. “These facilities, established inside two mosques in the Gaza Strip, were used by Hamas terrorists to conceal and store weapons.
Prior to the strikes, advance warnings were issued to the population in order to mitigate harm to civilians,” the army said, noting the other facility was in Deir Al-Balah. — DNA
