Israel launched a round of intensive air strikes over Gaza on Monday night. At least 18 people were reported killed. The dead and injured were rushed to Gaza’s Khan Yunis hospital.
Numerous buildings were hit including the house of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, causing damage but no casualties according to Gaza officials.
Hamas’s radio and TV stations were also hit but kept broadcasting.
Throughout the moonless night Israeli army flares illuminated the sky allowing the drones to get their targets in sight.
Earlier in the day it was children who had found themselves on the front line in the conflict when a missile strike hit a park in the Shati refugee camp.
Ten Palestinians were killed, eight of them children .
Israel denied involvement saying Hamas rockets must have misfired.
The children died instantly and scores more were injured according to eyewitness Nidal Aljerbi,
“There were at least seven children playing. They were hit and died on the spot. Another three men were sat over there, they were also hit. The children were playing and were happy, enjoying festival of Eid, and they got hit.”
The strike on the park occurred a few minutes after Palestinian officials said another missile hit the compound of the Shifa hospital, the main medical centre in Gaza. Several more people were wounded.
In the three week old conflict so far Israel has lost 48 soldiers along with three civilians who were killed by Palestinian shelling.
Casualties among the Palestinians run far higher with over one thousand Gazans having been killed most of them civilians.
