Gaza - Three Palestinians were killed and three wounded on Thursday evening in two separate Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City and on northern Gaza Strip, witnesses and medics said. Witnesses said an Israeli aircraft attacked a Hamas police station in the Beach Refugee camp, not far from senior Hamas leader and deposed prime minister Ismail Haneya, west of Gaza City.
They added that two people were killed and three wounded in the airstrike, while Israeli drones and aircraft were seen over the Gaza Strip as militants continued launching homemade rockets from Gaza at Israel.
Palestinian witnesses also said that a Palestinian shepherd was killed close to a rocket launcher east of the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia.
Mo'aweya Hassanein, chief of emergency and ambulance services in the Palestinian Health Ministry, said that since Wednesday morning 28 people have been killed, including three from the West Bank and 25 from Gaza.
He said that eight children were among the 25 people killed on Wednesday and Thursday. The rest were militants, most of them members of the Hamas movement's armed wing.
Three Palestinian children were killed early on Thursday afternoon in an Israeli airstrike on Beit Lahia, witnesses and medics said.
The witnesses said that four children had approached a rocket launcher in the area, adding that as soon as they got close to the launcher, an Israeli aircraft fired a missile, killing three of them and wounding the fourth.
Hassanein also said that two Palestinians were injured in another Israeli airstrike carried out late on Thursday afternoon. Witnesses said the two were in a car that was hit by an air-to-ground missile in northern Gaza Strip.
Israeli aircraft have launched a series of airstrikes since Wednesday morning on the Gaza Strip. Hamas militants and Hamas buildings have been targeted.
The Israeli airstrikes were a reaction to Palestinian militants' homemade rocket attacks carried out since Wednesday on towns and communities in southern Israel.
