Israel army denies Gaza mum and baby killed by airstrike

JERUSALEM: Israel’s army denied claims from Gazan authorities that an Israeli strike killed a pregnant Palestinian mother and her baby, saying Hamas was to blame for the deaths.

“The terror organisations’ propaganda at its finest,” Israeli army spokesman Ronen Manelis said on Twitter yesterday.

“The mother and girl they’re claiming in Gaza that were killed in an (Israeli) attack were killed by Hamas use of weapons,” he added, without providing further details.

Gaza militants fired fresh rocket barrages at Israel early yesterday in a deadly escalation that has seen Israel respond with waves of strikes as a fragile truce again faltered and a further escalation was feared.

Gazan authorities reported four Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes in the escalation that began on Saturday, but Israel disputed their account of the deaths of a pregnant mother and her baby.

One 58-year-old Israeli man was killed by a rocket strike on the city of Ashkelon near the Gaza border, Israeli police and the hospital said.

The latest flare-up came with Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules the blockaded Gaza Strip, seeking further concessions from Israel under the ceasefire.

Israel said 430 rockets had been fired from the Palestinian enclave since Saturday and its air defences intercepted many of them.

Beyond the man killed, an 80-year-old woman was seriously injured in a rocket strike on the Israeli city of Kiryat Gat, police and medics said.

A man was also hospitalised in Ashkelon, said police, which spoke of other injuries without providing details.

A house near Ashkelon was damaged while other rockets hit open areas.

The Israeli army said its tanks and planes hit some 200 militant targets in Gaza in response.

Two multi-storey buildings in Gaza City were destroyed.

Israel said one of the buildings included Hamas military intelligence and security offices. — AFP