Gaza - Ma'an - A major Israeli military assault on the Gaza Strip has killed four Palestinian men, including three shepherds, and one woman on Thursday morning. At least six other Palestinians, including three children, have been injured in the shelling.
According to Palestinian security sources, an Israeli military helicopter targeted a field where three men were tending their goats in the Abu Safieh area east of Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip .
The three shepherds, Sami and Ala'a Dahrouj, and Ziad Abu Rashid, were killed in the attack. Medical source said that their bodies arrived at the hospital in north Gaza in pieces.
Eyewitnesses also reported that more than ten Israeli military jeeps and vehicles, reinforced with Israeli Special Forces and with helicopters and a drone plane flying overhead, penetrated the village of An Nasser, east of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip.
A Palestinian woman Itimad Mo'amar, 35, was struck by Israeli shrapnel all over her body, killing her instantly, medical sources in Abu Yousef An Najjar hospital have confirmed.
The hospital also informed that the Israeli shelling injured at least seven others, including three children and a woman. One of the injured, Mohammad Mo'amar, later died of the wounds.
Strong clashes erupted between the Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters. Local sources also reported that the Israeli forces closed the road between the southern Gaza cities of Rafah and Khan Younis.
The sources also said that the Palestinian fighters detonated an explosive device in a house that the Israeli soldiers were trying to break into.
Meanwhile, the Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said that one of its groups was able to detonate two roadside bombs when an Israeli patrol passed east of Rafah.