Israeli tank shells kill four in Gaza Strip

Palestinian militants fired a missile at an Israeli military jeep on Saturday and Israel responded with shelling into the Gaza Strip that killed four civilians.

Officials and witnesses say 25 people were wounded in the flare-up, which was one of the most serious clashes in the border region in months.

The armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for firing the anti-tank missile into southern Israel. Four Israeli solders were wounded in the attack.

The casualty toll in Saturday’s violence was one of the highest in a single incident in Gaza in recent months. At least five of the injured, some of them children, are in critical condition, medical sources said.

Residents said a crowded mourning tent in the Shijaia neighbourhood near Gaza City was full of people paying respects to a bereaved family man when a shell struck.

Ambulances, private vehicles and motorbikes rushed the wounded to hospital, eyewitnesses said. Among those killed was an 18-year-old man.

Shortly after Saturday’s incident, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held consultations with Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz “to discuss the situation in the south,” the premier’s official Twitter account said.

And Barak issued a statement saying Israel was considering a further military response in the coming days.

Sporadic clashes have occurred between Israel and militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

The level of violence in the border region, however, has been down significantly since an Israeli military operation in the region in 2008 killed 1,400 Palestinians.

An Egypt-brokered ceasefire went into force in the border zone on October 24 after 72 hours of bloodshed in which air strikes killed eight Palestinian fighters and armed groups fired more than 100 rockets at Israel, wounding three people.