An Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City has killed at least seven Palestinians.
The airstrike early Saturday in the western part of Gaza City recorded the highest number of fatalities in a single hit.
The militant group Hamas reported the number is likely to rise as efforts to recover casualties from under the rubble of the house on the edge of Shati refugee camp are still ongoing. There was no immediate update from the Health Ministry and its spokesman did not answer calls for comment.
Said Alghoul, who lives nearby, said Israeli warplanes dropped at least three bombs on the three-story house without warning its residents in advance.
“I saw the bodies of four people, including children, being rushed to the hospital,” he said. “I could not endure and ran back to my home.”
He said rescuers called a bulldozer to dig up the rubble as they looked for survivors or bodies.
Shortly afterward, Hamas said it fired a salvo of rockets at southern Israel in response to the airstrike.
The Israeli military says it has identified three rockets fired from Syria toward Israeli territory on Friday.
The military said in a statement that one of the rockets landed inside Syria in the evening hours. There was no immediate comment from Damascus.
The incident comes amid a violent escalation between Israel and Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers this week that has been compounded by an eruption of ethnic clashes inside Israel as well and violence in the occupied West Bank.
Israel appears to be looking to inflict intensified damage on the Islamic militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza and has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel.
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