Gaza death toll rises to 135: Health Ministry
More than 904 Palestinians have also been wounded in the Israeli aerial attacks
GAZA CITY
The total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip since Monday night has reached 135, a Palestinian Health Ministry official said Saturday.
"At least 135 people have been killed and around 950 injured since the start of the Israeli military operation," Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qodra told Anadolu Agency.
One Gaza resident was killed on Saturday and three others injured in an Israeli strike on a home in southern Gaza.
Five more residents of the blockaded coastal enclave also succumbed to wounded they sustained in an Israeli strike earlier.
Earlier in the day on Saturday, a 69-year-old Palestinian was killed and a young man seriously injured in an Israeli strike on a home in eastern Gaza, the Health Ministry said.
An additional resident of Gaza succumbed to wounds he sustained early on Saturday in an Israeli attack on Palestinians in northern Gaza.
Israel has launched a military offensive – dubbed "Operation Protective Edge" – with the stated aim of ending rocket fire from Gaza.
It has continued to pound the territory with airstrikes, while ground troops remain massed on the Gaza Strip's borders in advance of a possible ground assault.
Gaza-based resistance factions, meanwhile, have continued to fire rockets into Israel in response to the unrelenting airstrikes.
They have fired more than 600 rockets since Monday, according to security sources.
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