Israel Kills 13 Palestinians During Airstrikes in Gaza

On Thursday morning, Israeli warplanes intensified airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, killing 13 Palestinians, including three leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement (PIJ).

RELATED:

Israeli Soldiers Demolish Two Palestinian Homes in West Bank

The Palestinian authorities reported that the Israeli airstrikes were carried out in the cities of Rafah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip and in Gaza City.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said that the killed in the attack also include women, children, and additional individuals who were in the vicinity of the airstrikes.

At least 20 other people were injured as the airstrikes hit the top floor of a residential building in Gaza City and a house in Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip.

Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the PIJ movement in Gaza, said in a statement that it mourned the three leaders "who were assassinated as a result of a cowardly Zionist crime at dawn today." Among the dead were Tareq Izel Dein, the spokesman of PIJ in the Palestinian territories, his wife and two children, and two other senior PIJ military leaders.

The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) also mourned the death of "a group of distinguished resistance leaders" of the Islamic Jihad Movement.

The airstrikes came less than a week after over 100 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel following the death of Khader Adnan, who had been on hunger strike for 86 days while under Israeli custody.