Injured children look on from inside a damaged building at the site of an Israeli strike that targeted the Abu Samra family home in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. AFP
Four children and their mother were killed this morning in an Israeli airstrike on a family home in Jabalia, northern Gaza, according to local sources, who said the house collapsed and trapped them under the rubble.
Despite efforts by rescue teams to recover them, all five were confirmed dead.
Earlier, Gaza's civil defence reported that Israel had killed at least 28 Palestinians overnight and since morning.
This incudes at least 13 killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in central Gaza's Deir el-Balah belonging to the Abu Samra family, Civil agency spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said in a statement.
The Israeli occupation army confirmed a separate Israeli strike further north, on a school in Gaza City.
Bassal said that eight people including four children were killed in the attack on the school, which had been repurposed as a shelter for Palestinians displaced by the Israeli war on Gaza.
An overnight Israeli strike killed three people in Rafah, in the south, Bassal said.
And an Israeli drone strike early on Sunday hit a car in Gaza City, killing four people, he added.
The relentless bombardment strikes came as Hamas and two other Palestinian armed groups said on Saturday in a rare joint statement that an agreement to end the bloodshed was "closer than ever".
The groups, which include Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said that a truce in Gaza and a captive release deal was possible provided Israel does not impose new conditions in negotiations.
Indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, were held last week in Doha, rekindling hope of a potential breakthrough after months of stalling.
On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was "hopeful" for a deal, but avoided making any predictions as to when it would materialise.
Israel's deadliest-ever war on Gaza has killed at least 45,227 people, mostly women and children, according to figures from the health ministry. The UN rights office confirms the figures are reliable and that most of the dead are women and children.
The toll includes 107,573 people who have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the Israeli assault began in October 2023.
*This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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