An Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip killed at least three Palestinians Monday, health officials said, as mediators held talks with Hamas leaders to try to bolster a U.S.-brokered cease-fire.
Medics said the strike had hit a group of men outside a school in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. There was no immediate comment by the Israeli military.
At Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, the bodies of those killed lay on the ground in white shrouds outside the morgue as relatives and friends arrived to bid them farewell. Some kissed the victims' foreheads before holding special prayers.
"This isn’t a truce; it’s a trap for our young men. Every day there are martyrs, every single day. How long can this continue?” said Umm Hussam Abu el-Rous, a female relative of one of the victims.
"Isn't it unjust that a three-year-old child is afraid of seeing his (dead) father? He says, 'My father went to bring me something from the shop,'" she added.
