Two children among nine killed in Israeli airstrike

A failed Israeli airstrike today against a militants' car in Gaza City killed nine Palestinians including two children, Palestinian hospital officials said.

The Israeli military said the militants were on a mission to launch rockets at southern Israel.

Palestinian witnesses said two missiles were fired, but they missed the car. The second missile came two minutes after the first, after a crowd had begun to gather around the scene of the attack.

Seven of the Palestinians killed were civilians, hospital officials said, and Islamic Jihad said the other two belonged to the ranks of its militant group.

Seventeen Palestinians were injured in the strike, three of them seriously. Doctors at Gaza’s Shifa hospital found it difficult to work with the large number of casualties, and some were being treated on the bloodied floor.

At the hospital’s morgue, where the bodies were taken, angry women shouted: “Death to Israel, Death to the occupation!”

An explosion was heard minutes later in the nearby town of Jebaliya. Palestinians said Israel had carried out another airstrike, but the Israeli army said it did not operate there, and no casualties were immediately reported.

Israel-Palestinian violence has escalated since an explosion on a Gaza beach killed eight civilians on Friday .

Palestinians have blamed the deaths on an Israeli artillery round. Israeli military officials said that the military’s investigation showed the deaths likely were caused by a mine planted by militants from the Palestinians’ ruling Hamas party.