At least nine Palestinians were killed, including three local journalists, and others wounded on Saturday in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza's northern Beit Lahiya town, Gaza's health ministry said, as Hamas' leaders hold Gaza ceasefire talks with mediators in Cairo.
Several were critically injured as the strike hit a car, with casualties inside and outside the vehicle, health officials told Reuters.
Witnesses and fellow journalists said the people in the car were on a mission for a charity called Al Khair Foundation in Beit Lahiya, and they were accompanied by journalists and photographers when the strike hit them. At least three local journalists were among the dead, according to Palestinian media.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it had struck two individuals that it identified as "terrorists" operating a drone that it said posed a threat to forces in Beit Lahiya.
The military later struck several other suspects who it said had collected the drone equipment and entered a vehicle. The military did not say how it had determined that the individuals it had struck were "terrorists" or provide detail on the threat that the drone had posed to its soldiers.
The incident underscores the fragility of the January 19 ceasefire agreement that halted large-scale fighting in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian health officials say dozens of people have been killed by Israeli fire despite the truce.
Salama Marouf, the head of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, denied the army's allegations.
"The team was made of civilians and worked in an area near a shelter on a mission sponsored by a charity. They didn't exist in a prohibited area and didn't pose any danger of any kind to the occupation army," Marouf said in a statement.
Reuters