Gaza, Jul 17 (IANS): Two fresh rounds of Israeli airstrikes on the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis Wednesday evening killed five more Palestinians, including a three-year-old girl, authorities said.
Israeli war jets fired missiles on a house and killed four people, including the girl and a woman. The fifth victim was killed in a separate airstrike on a house in town, a Gaza health ministry spokesperson said.
"The death toll since the start of the Israeli aerial offensive on the Gaza Strip in July 8 has climbed to 220, and around 1,570 were injured," the spokesperson said, adding that most of those killed Wednesday were children.
A Hamas spokesperson in Gaza said that "those killed children didn't fire rockets to be killed... the problem is not with the Palestinians or with the rockets, the problem is in the ( Israeli) occupation... This occupation wants to uproot the Palestinian people, kill them and force them to keep kneeling."
"Hamas stressed that killing 44 children since the beginning of the aggression on Gaza will never break our determination to continue defending our people and confront this enemy," the Hamas spokesperson added.