GAZA CITY
A Palestinian child was killed and at least 30 others, mostly women and children, were wounded Monday in an Israeli shelling of a house in al-Shati refugee camp, west of the Gaza City, shortly after the start of Israel's unilateral seven-hour humanitarian truce.
"An eight-year-old girl was killed and 30 others injured in the Israeli shelling of the Bakri family house," Palestinian Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qodra told Anadolu Agency.
He said some of the victims were in life-threatening condition.
Eyewitnesses said the Israeli army continued to shell different areas of the blockaded Gaza Strip despite its unilateral ceasefire.
The Israeli government said late Sunday that it would observe a seven-hour humanitarian ceasefire in most of the Gaza Strip on Monday, a unilateral move that was rejected by Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.
Coordinator of the Israeli government’s activities in the Palestinian territories Yoav Mordechai said in a statement that the ceasefire will be effective on Monday between 10am local time (07:00 GMT) and 5pm (14:00 GMT).
The Israeli Defense Ministry, however, said the ceasefire would not apply to eastern Rafah in the south.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that the move was “unilateral and aims to divert attention away from [Israeli] massacres” in Gaza. “We don’t trust it,” he added in a statement.
He also called on Gazans to exercise the “utmost caution and vigilance and not to trust the Israeli occupation [forces].”
Israel has been pounding the Gaza Strip – home to 1.8 million people – since July 7 with the stated aim of halting rocket fire.
At least 1824 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed and 9450 wounded in unrelenting Israeli attacks since then.
The offensive – codenamed "Operation Protective Edge," is the self-proclaimed Jewish state's third major offensive against the densely-populate coastal enclave within the last six years.
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