CAIRO, August 20. /TASS/. At least nine civilians have died in an Israeli strike on a market in the settlement of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, the Al Jazeera television channel said.

According to the television channel, the majority of the victims are children and women.

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.