Relatives mourn during the funeral of Bashir Abdel Aal, a 20-year-old Palestinian youth who was killed by Israeli tank shells minutes before a five-hour truce went into effect, on Thursday in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah. AFP Photo GAZA CITY: An Israeli air strike in Gaza killed three children on Thursday, medics said, after a humanitarian lull in a 10-day conflict that has killed 234 Pal
estinians, reports AFP. The strike hit the Sabra neighbourhood in the centre of Gaza, killing three children from the same family, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told AFP. Their deaths were the first to follow the end of a five-hour humanitarian ceasefire, requested by the UN, which brought some respite for residents of the besieged Palestinian territory. Before the ceasefire took effect at 10:00 (0700 GMT), Israeli tank fire killed three men in their twenties in the southern city of Rafah, Qudra said. One Israeli has also been killed by rockets fired by Palestinian militants. The Rafah deaths came after another seven people were killed overnight. Two men were killed in Gaza City, another two in Deir al-Balah and a fifth in northern Beit Lahiya. One man was also killed in southern Khan Yunis and another in Rafah, Qudra said. In addition, 1,690 people had been injured during conflict, Qudra said. Israel and the Hamas movement announced Thursday they were observing a five-hour humanitarian truce called for by the United Nations. According to figures provided by the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), more than 80 percent of the conflict’s victims have been civilians. The only Israeli casualty has been a civilian who died on Tuesday evening in a rocket strike near the Erez crossing, medics said. At least four Israelis have been seriously wounded. AFP reports from Istanbul: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday accused Israel of attempting a “systematic genocide” of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, his strongest attack yet on the Jewish state over its air campaign in the territory. “We are witnessing this systematic genocide every Ramadan. The Western world remains silent, so does the Islamic world,” Erdogan told a meeting of Islamic scholars in Istanbul to mark the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. “Because those who lost their lives are Palestinian, you can’t hear their voices,” he added. Meanwhile, in JERUSALEM, Israel said Thursday it had agreed on a truce with Hamas to end 10 days of violence in Gaza, although the reported deal was denied by the Islamist movement, AFP further says.
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