8 killed as Israel continues with Gaza offensive

GAZA CITY: Israel pressed its month-long offensive into the Gaza Strip on Thursday with eight Palestinians, including a 12-year-old boy, being killed in military strikes around Rafah in southern Gaza.

At least six of the dead were militants, although it was not known to which armed groups they belonged, Palestinian hospital and security officials said.

Twenty-six other people -- six of them children -- were wounded in the Israeli operations around Rafah, hospital officials said, adding that seven of the injured were in a critical state. Several women were among the wounded.

Anis Abu Awaad, the boy who died, was killed along with three militants in an air raid, while a tank shell killed two other militants early on Thursday, security officials said.

Another tank shell killed a member of Islamic Jihad, while a 50-year-old man died late morning when Israeli soldiers fired in a Rafah neighborhood, hospital and security officials said.

Children continued to be caught by the violence. Two youngsters, Muhamed Abu Hassan, aged 4, and his six-year-old sister Rihem, were wounded late on Wednesday by Israeli tank fire during an incursion in the area of the Dahaniya airport on the outskirts of Rafah, hospital officials said.

The strikes near Rafah were part of Israel's massive offensive launched in Gaza on June 28, three days after Palestinian militants killed two soldiers and seized a third in a cross-border raid.