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GAZA (Reuters) – Three Palestinian boys were killed Sunday in an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip border, medical officials said in the Hamas-run enclave, while Israel said hitting suspected militants attempting to blow up part of the border fence.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said two of the dead were 13 and 14 years old.
Gaza doctors counted more than 216 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces at the border during nearly seven months of Palestinian protests against the Israeli blockade of the territory and for the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their lands. An Israeli soldier was killed by a sniper.
Israel says its deadly response is needed to prevent Gaza's armed infiltration. The violence has sometimes degenerated into bombing exchanges that, according to Israel, could trigger a war, while Egypt and the United Nations have repeatedly negotiated truces.
In the incident on Sunday, an Israeli plane struck "three terrorists adjacent to the fence who were trying to sabotage him and who apparently were laying a bomb," the Israeli army said in a statement.
Four Palestinians were killed at the border on Friday, and a militant group in Gaza fired back with a flurry of missiles at Israel, provoking numerous Israeli airstrikes on Saturday, although no one was killed.
Two million Palestinians live in Gaza, mostly stateless descendants of people who fled or were driven from their homes in Israel when it was founded in 1948.
The narrow seaside territory has been run since 2007 by Hamas, an Islamist group, during which it waged three wars against Israel.
Israel and Egypt have maintained a blockade for security reasons, which according to the World Bank would have led to an economic collapse of the territory, relying almost entirely on international aid and lacking adequate electricity, health care and drinking water.
Written by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Edited by Peter Graff
