At least 10 Palestinians, including eight children, were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip early on Tuesday, according to local health officials and witnesses. The airstrikes targeted a house in the Shati refugee camp.
The attack came amid rising tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, following the death of a prominent Palestinian hunger striker in an Israeli prison last week. Khader Adnan, an activist affiliated with the PIJ, died after refusing to eat for 87 days to protest his detention without charge.
The Shati refugee camp is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with more than 85,000 people living in an area of about a fifth of a square mile. The camp was established in 1948 to house refugees who fled their homes during the creation of Israel.
Witnesses said there was no warning before the missiles hit the house at about 2 a.m. local time, causing a huge explosion that shook the neighborhood. Rescue workers searched for survivors under the rubble, while medics evacuated the wounded and the dead.
One of the survivors was a 5-month-old infant, who was pulled out alive from the debris. The father of four of the children who died, Mohammed al-Hadidi, said his wife and their five sons had gone to visit her brother for Eid al-Fitr, the Islamic holiday that marks the end of Ramadan.