Palestinian youth killed in Israeli airstrike

A Palestinian youth was killed in an Israeli airstrike today on a northern Gaza Strip refugee camp, Palestinian officials said.

An airstrike directed at a minivan parked in the Jebaliya camp killed the youth, 15, and wounded seven other civilians, six of them children, according to Dr Muawiya Hassanin, head of emergency services in the area.

A Palestinian security official said the minivan was empty at the time of the strike and that all of the wounded were passers-by.

Muhammad Matar, 35, a local resident, said a group of militants had gathered n a street corner near a nursery and that the strike was aimed at them. The militants were not wounded, Matar said.

The army said an airstrike in the same area targeted four militants collecting launchers used to fire rockets into Israel.

The army has been carrying out an offensive against Palestinian rocket squads in the town of Beit Hanoun, also in northern Gaza, since last week. Troops have killed 48 Palestinians there, most of them militants.

A separate airstrike in northern Gaza today wounded two militants from the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades who were heading to a field near the border with Israel to fire rockets, Palestinian security officials said. The Israeli army said it was checking the report.