Pregnant Palestinian mother and child die in Israeli air strike

A Palestinian woman who was five-months pregnant and her three-year-old daughter have been killed in an Israeli air strike east of Gaza City.

Medical sources in the besieged territory said 30-year-old Noor Hassan and her daughter Rahaf died when their house collapsed following an Israeli air strike on a Hamas military training camp near their home.

Medical sources said the woman’s husband – along with her three other children – had also been injured when their home collapsed after Israeli warplanes struck a nearby site in Gaza. 

The Israeli military, for its part, said it had responded to a rocket fired into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip on Saturday night by targeting what it described as two Hamas “weapons factories”.

The Israeli army said the air strikes were launched in response to a rocket that was fired into southern Israel. The rocket was reportedly intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome rocket defence system.

The army said that its planes were targeting two Hamas weapons-manufacturing sites in the area.

Palestinians inspect the rubble of a building that was destroyed after Israeli forces carried out an airstrike on a house in Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza on October 11, 2015. Images by MEMO photogrpaher Mohammad Asad.

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Injured Palestinian father, Yahya Hassan holds his son Ahmed Hassan’s hand as they wait to receive treatment at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Gaza on October 11, 2015.

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A Palestinian civil defense team member carry the body of 3-year-old Rahan Hassan among the rubble of buildings after Israeli forces carried out an airstrike on a house in Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza on October 11, 2015. Images by Anadolu agency.

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