6 killed in Gaza, death toll rise to 98

Six people, including five members of the same family, were killed early on Friday, while 15 others injured in the shelling of a southern Gaza home.

The home shelling brings to 98 the number of Palestinians killed in almost four days of assults by Israel on the Gaza Strip and to 594 the number of injured victims from these attacks.

Israeli planes targeted a populated four-story building in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, even without giving its residents any warnings, eyewitnesses said. They added that the house was totally destroyed, while scores of neighboring houses were affected.

A Palestinian was killed earlier in the day in an attack on his southern Gaza home. Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qodra said earlier that four Palestinians were injured in a strike in central Gaza. He said two more Palestinians were injured in an attack on an eastern Gaza hospital.

The attack severely damaged the hospital, which made it necessary for it to be evacuated, the Health Ministry said in a statement. The ministry said the toll from Gaza included 25 children and 13 women. It added that only ten militants were killed in the attacks, with most fatalities being Palestinian civilians.

Gaza-based resistance factions, meanwhile, have continued to fire rockets into Israel - without causing any fatalities thus far - in response to the unrelenting airstrikes.

The Israeli army claimed earlier that Hamas had fired over 365 rockets at Israel from Gaza within less than three days.