Roundup: Israeli tank shell on southeastern Gaza, Palestinian woman killed: medics

A Palestinian woman was killed on Thursday evening and two other civilians wounded in an Israeli tanks shelling on an area east of the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, medics said.

Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman for the Gaza health ministry, told reporters that Zina al-Amour, 53 years old, was critically wounded together with another two civilians in the neighborhood of al-Fukhari east of the city by the shells shrapnel.

He added that the woman died of her wounds at Nasser Hospital in the city and the two other civilians are receiving treatment in the hospital and they are in moderate condition.

Earlier on Thursday, Israeli war jets struck with three missiles an area east of Rafah town in southern Gaza Strip; no injuries reported, according to security officials and paramedics.

The sources and eyewitnesses said the airstrike targeted a field close to the commercial crossing of Kerem Shalom on the borders between southeast Gaza Strip and Israel. Huge explosions were heard in the area.

It is the third Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip at predawn on Thursday. Four Palestinian civilians were injured, including an old man and three children in several successive airstrikes on southern, eastern and northern Gaza.

On Wednesday night, Israeli war jets carried out five separate airstrikes on empty fields, mainly at the area of the destroyed and inoperative Gaza Airport southeast of the Gaza Strip. No injuries were reported.

Since Tuesday, the Israeli army has been operating near the fence of the borders between eastern Gaza Strip and Israel. Gaza militants of Hamas and Islamic Jihad traded fire with the Israeli army ground forces that acted in the area.

On Thursday, the Islamic Jihad armed wing claimed responsibility for firing five mortar shells on the Israeli army ground forces acting near the fence of the borders with Israel.

The group said in an emailed leaflet that it is the first time that the group claims responsibility for firing mortars since Israel ended its military campaign on Gaza in the summer of 2014.

Tension grew on Thursday afternoon as Gaza security officials said on Thursday that the Israeli army forces pulled their bulldozers and tanks that rolled around 300 meters into the territory of eastern Gaza Strip close to the fence of the borders.

Well-informed sources, close to Hamas, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Xinhua that Egypt intervened between Hamas and Israel to defuse a growing tension between the two.

The sources said that on Thursday morning, Israel responded to Egypt's mediation and pulled out its ground forces from the area, while Hamas and other militants refrained from firing mortars and attacking the force.

Musa Abu Marzooq, a senior Hamas leader who is based in Qatar, wrote on his Facebook page in Arabic that the Egyptian sponsor reached a truce agreement between Hamas and Israel.

He said that the two sides have accepted the Egypt-backed mediation and brought the situation back to calm.

In 2014, Israel waged a large-scale military operation on Gaza that lasted for 50 days during the summer, which left 2,200 Palestinians more than 70 Israelis killed besides large destruction in housing and infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian consensus government of the Palestinian National Authority said in an official statement that "the dangerous Israeli escalation on the Gaza Strip should end immediately."

Yousef al-Mahmoud, spokesman for the government said in an emailed press statement that the international community has to immediately move to halt the new Israeli aggression on the Gazans. Enditem