Gaza City: A Gaza civilian was killed and 12 others wounded, among them seven children, when an Israeli air strike hit a home next to a militant training ground, medics said on Friday.
The raid destroyed a home in eastern Gaza City, killing Bahjat Al Zaalan, 37, and injuring many of his family members, more than half of them children, emergency services spokesman Adham Abu Selmiya said.
"Seven children were wounded, two of them very seriously," he said, indicating that Zaalan's wife and daughter were also hurt in the attack as well as three other people.
The strike, which targeted a Hamas militant training ground nearby, caused the house to collapse, and several other houses nearby were also partly destroyed or burned.
The Israeli military issued a laconic statement confirming it carried out two overnight raids on "terror activity sites," one of which was in northern Gaza, but made no mention of the civilian casualties.
"Overnight, IAF aircraft targeted two terror activity sites in the northern and southern Gaza Strip. Directs hits were confirmed," a military statement said, with a spokeswoman saying the raids were in response to overnight rocketfire on southern Israel.
City of Rafah
An AFP photographer confirmed a second Israeli strike on the southern city of Rafah, saying it had hit a militant training ground. No-one was injured in the raid.
The strikes came several hours after at least three rockets were fired into southern Israel, causing no injuries or damage, police sources said.
The rocket fire was in response to an earlier deadly Israeli raid on Thursday afternoon which targeted a car in Gaza City, killing two militants and injuring another four people.
Israel said one of the men was responsible for planning a deadly bombing in Eilat in 2007 which killed three Israelis.
