DUBAI, December 6. /TASS/. At least six people have been killed when Israeli troops shelled residential areas in the central part of the Gaza Strip, Qatar-based Al Jazeera television reported early on Wednesday.

According to the report, Israeli shells hit two houses in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Residents are trying to rescue survivors trapped under the rubble, but the effort is complicated by raging fires.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 200 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.