Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas swiftly condemned the strike as “state terrorism” and called on the international community to intervene.
The casualties occurred when two rockets hit a car carrying three members of the Islamic Jihad militant group and travelling on the main thoroughfare dissecting the coastal strip just north of Gaza city, Khaled al-Batch, a top official of the group, told AFP.
Two of the militants, Hammudeh al-Wadyeh, 25, and Shawqi al-Saiqali, also in his 20s, were killed as a result, al-Batch said. The third man was injured.
Seven civilians, including two children, were killed and 20 injured when a third rocket struck as onlookers gathered on the scene, witnesses and medical sources said. The civilians included two brothers, 4-year-old Hisham and 8-year-old Shaher al-Mugrabi, and their father Ashraf, said Jumaa al-Saqaa, a doctor at a hospital said.—AFP