By Xinhua,
Gaza : After a nine-year-old Palestinian girl was killed in an Israeli shelling in southern Gaza Strip, a Hamas militant was also killed early Wednesday in hospital, sources and witnesses said.
The witnesses said that three other people from the same family of the girl were injured when a tank shell landed on their house in al-Qarara village in the east of Khan Younis city.
According to local residents, Israeli tanks, which rolled in the area, fired a shell that landed on the house and caused great damage, leading to the death of the girl.
Shortly afterward, a Hamas militant was killed while exchanging fire with the invading Israeli forces. “The body of Mohammed Saed was evacuated to Nasser hospital in Khan Younis an hour after his death,” said Mu’awia Hassanien, an emergency official.
The ambulances could not immediately evacuate the body due to the Israeli refusal to allow them into the area where lies the security fence separating Israel from Gaza, the residents said.
The hospital officials said the body of the girl was torn into pieces.
The residents said that at least eight tanks and two bulldozerscame to the area from the nearby Kissufim commercial crossing under heavy machine gun fire. The bulldozers began excavation and leveling operations.
On Tuesday, Israeli cabinet met to decide a military operation into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to stop rocket attacks by Palestinian militants.