Gaza, Sep 27 (Xinhua) Eight Palestinians were killed and six wounded in an Israeli air strike on a militant’s car in southern Gaza and in an artillery shelling on the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, medics and witnesses said.
Witnesses in Zeitoon neighbourhood in Gaza City said they heard two huge successive explosions Wednesday, which were a result of two rockets fired by an Israeli aircraft hitting a local jeep carrying four militants.
They testified as saying that the targeted car was burnt, adding that dozens of people arrived at the scene, from where ambulances evacuated the four.
Shifa Hospital in Gaza City confirmed that four people were brought dead to the hospital, adding that three bystanders who were injured in the incident were receiving treatment at the hospital.
Reports said they are members of a group called the Army of Islam, and the group’s spokesman Khatab Maqdisi was among them.
The group was responsible for the abduction of the BBC reporter in Gaza Alan Johnston.
Meanwhile, four other Palestinian militants were killed and three other civilians wounded Wednesday evening when an Israeli tank fired one artillery shell at the town of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza Strip.
A hospital source said that four people were killed, and three other civilians wounded and the three wounded were in critical condition.
Witnesses said that in the early afternoon, at least 40 Israeli army tanks, bulldozers, armoured vehicles and personnel carries rolled into the entrance of the town amid intense gunfire.
The Israeli army incursion into the town, according to witnesses, came shortly after several Palestinian armed groups claimed responsibility for firing homemade rockets at the Israeli town of Sderout.
Israeli media quoted Defence Minister Ehud Barak as saying Wednesday that a large-scale operation against the Gaza Strip was becoming necessary and should be carried out very soon.