Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

5 Children in Gaza Family Killed by Israeli Strike

An Israeli air strike killed seven Palestinian civilians on Thursday, including five children, in the largest death toll from a single attack since the start of a three-day offensive against Hamas militants in Gaza, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

Residents and medical officials said an Israeli air strike bombed at least two houses in a densely populated area near Khan Younis while residents were asleep.

Bodies were pulled out of rubble from three or four homes including neighboring structures, and the Palestinian Health Ministry said five of the dead were children. Another 16 people were also wounded in the attack, the ministry said.

The attack raised the death toll to 60 Palestinians, most of them civilians, since Tuesday, in Israel’s offensive aimed at halting rocket fire at the Jewish state from coastal Gaza.

Israel says gunmen have fired more than 200 rockets at it during the campaign, striking deep into the country’s heartland. The rockets have caused no serious casualties, but the barrages have paralyzed business in southern communities, with hundreds of thousands of people scrambling for shelter.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strike and fatalities, which occurred shortly after Israeli media said 30 rockets had been launched in the space of an hour at southern Israeli towns and cities. No injuries were reported in those attacks.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.