A mother and two of her children were killed and four civilians were injured on Saturday evening in a fresh Israeli army offensive on eastern Gaza City, Palestinian medics and security sources said.

Medics at Shiffa Hospital in Gaza City confirmed that a 42-year- old mother called Om Ayman Hajaj, her son Mohamed, 20, and her daughter Rawan, 6, were killed by the fragments of an Israeli tank shell.

Security sources said that an Israeli army tank stationed on eastern Gaza City fired several tank shells at the city's neighborhood of Sheja'eya, adding that one of the shells hit a house in the neighborhood.

However, an Israeli Army spokesman told Israel Radio that the IDF forces were acting against Palestinian militants in eastern Gaza, and that he has no idea on shelling a house in eastern Gaza.

Eyewitnesses said that an Israeli tank stationed in eastern Gaza City was attacked by militants and the tank fired back and one of the shells hit a house in the outskirts of the neighborhood east of the city.

Early on Saturday morning, a column of tanks and armored vehicles, backed by bulldozers and helicopters, incurred into the area through Karni commercial passage east on Gaza City on the borders with Israel.

The Israeli army said the aim of the incursion was to prevent militants from launching more homemade rockets at southern Israel.

Earlier, medics said that eight Palestinians died in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, adding five were shot dead in a fresh clash with Israeli soldiers in eastern and northern Gaza Strip and three died of their wounds they sustained in the last two days.

Source: Xinhua