9 killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza

The Palestinian Health Ministry said that seven bodies were brought to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, and two other bodies to the hospital in Rafah town in the southern Gaza Strip.

In a press statement, the ministry said that more than 10 Palestinians, including women and children, were injured in the Israeli airstrikes on several buildings in Gaza City and Rafah town in the southern Gaza Strip.

Sources told Xinhua that among the dead were Tareq Izel Dein, the spokesman of the organisation in the Palestinian territories, his wife and two children, and two other senior military leaders.

Palestinian sources and eyewitnesses said that Israeli drones bombed several buildings at predawn Tuesday in Gaza City and the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah.

They said that the first building was a residential apartment in the "Dawood" tower in the Al-Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City, and the other target was a building in Rafah town.

The PIJ militants were in the two buildings which were bombed by the Israeli drones' missiles, the sources said, adding that several explosions were suddenly heard in Gaza as Israeli army drones kept hovering over the coastal enclave.

Meanwhile, an Israeli army spokesman said in a brief statement that the Israeli army was bombing certain targets in the Gaza Strip without revealing more details.

The Israeli army later said that, according to an assessment of the situation, the army had ordered Israeli residents living close to the Gaza Strip to stay near bomb shelters at a distance of 40km for fear of rocket fire from Gaza.