DUBAI, May 16. /TASS/. Four civilians were killed and several more were wounded as a result of an Israeli strike on the southern Gaza Strip, the Al Jazeera television channel said.

According to the TV channel, the strike was delivered on a house south of the city of Rafah.

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 240 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. 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.