At least eight Palestinians were killed and 21 wounded on Wednesday in a series of Israeli airstrikes and tanks shelling on north-east Gaza City, medics, eyewitnesses and security sources reported.

Joma'a al-Saqqa, public relation officer at the Shiffa Hospital in Gaza City said that the death toll by Israeli strikes on Gaza since early predawn Wednesday hit to eight and 21 injured.

Palestinian security sources said that dozens of Israeli army tanks, bulldozers, armored vehicles and personnel carries rolled into al-Sha'f neighborhood, northeast of Gaza City amid intensive gunfire.

Since predawn, the Israeli aircrafts had carried out four separate airstrikes on Palestinian militants who tried to confront the Israeli armored vehicles' thrust into the area, they said.

Eyewitnesses said that one Israeli army tank fired one tank shells at the neighborhood during the armored vehicles thrust into the neighborhood, killing and wounding more than 10 Palestinians, including militants and civilians.

Al-Saqqa from the Shiffa Hospital in Gaza City said that six Palestinians were killed, including a 3-year-old girl, and five wounded, three are in critical conditions.

Meanwhile, one Palestinian was killed and eight were injured in Israeli air strikes on northern and eastern Gaza City, adding that some of those injured are civilians and in serious conditions, he added.

Earlier on Wednesday, an Israeli aircraft targeted by missiles the training camp of the Hamas-led Palestinian Interior Ministry's security auxiliary force in northern Gaza City, where eight people were injured, according to him.

He said that one of those wounded in the airstrike on the training camp died of his wounds later at the hospital.

The Israeli ground incursion into the area is part of an ongoing Israeli military large-scale offensive on the Gaza Strip since June 25 when an Israeli soldier was abducted by militants led by Hamas armed wing in the Gaza Strip.

Israel said the aim of the operation is to rein on Palestinian militants to force them to release the captive soldier and stop launching homemade rockets from the area at southern Israel.

Source: Xinhua