BEIT HANUN (Gaza Strip), April 28: Four children, aged one to five, their mother and a militant were killed in Israeli operations in Gaza on Monday as Palestinian factions headed to Egypt for talks on a possible truce.

The four siblings — aged one, three, four and five — were killed when a tank shell hit their home in the town of Beit Hanun, and their mother died later of her wounds, doctors at the Kamal Radwan hospital said.

“I left the house just moments before to look for one of my children. I heard the sound of the explosion,” said 70-year-old father Ahmed Abu Maateq.

“They had been eating breakfast and my wife had been holding our youngest child in her hands,” he said as he looked down at the blood, flesh and spilled milk splashed across the wreckage.

His wife and six children were in the courtyard in their pyjamas when the missile slammed into the front door of the house, he said. The remaining two children were hospitalised.

“I hope to God that the same thing that happened to me happens to whoever fired that missile at my house, that what happened to my wife and children happens to his family,” Abu Maateq said, his eyes red with pain and anger.

Islamic Jihad fighters had clashed with Israeli troops near the house which is close to Gaza’s border with Israel, Palestinian security officials said, and the group said one of its fighters was killed in the same area.

The army said one Israeli soldier was lightly wounded in the fighting.

Three Hamas fighters and another Palestinian were wounded in an air strike in northern Gaza later in the day.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak vowed the military would continue to target Hamas across the Gaza Strip, and blamed the Islamists for civilian deaths.

“By operating within populated civilian areas and by distributing and storing explosives there, Hamas is responsible for some of the civilian casualties,” Barak’s office quoted him as saying.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said: “We are currently investigating this morning’s tragic incident,” adding that “we make every possible effort to prevent innocent civilians from getting caught in crossfire.” Hamas meanwhile lashed out at Israel, saying the strike undermined talks in Egypt aimed at securing a ceasefire in Gaza.

Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniya said the “massacre” was part of Israel’s “constant attempts to destroy any regional or international effort to lift the siege and end the violence.” Palestinian militants fired at least 13 rockets at southern Israel, damaging a house in the hard-hit town of Sderot near the border, the army said.

No one was wounded in the attack.—AFP