DUBAI, September 25. /TASS/. At least six Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli strike on the southern Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reported.

According to the TV channel, a woman and her five children were killed in the Israeli shelling attack on a residential building in the town of Hay al-Nasr, northeast of the city of Rafah.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants staged a surprise attack on Israeli territory from Gaza, killing residents of Israeli border settlements and taking over 250 hostages, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as retaliation for the aggressive actions taken by Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians before the crisis, launching air strikes on Gaza as well as some parts of Lebanon and Syria before starting a ground operation in the Palestinian enclave.

Against this background, tensions began to rise on the Lebanese-Israeli border. Since October 8, 2023, ongoing cross-border strikes on Israel from Lebanon’s territory have prompted return fire from Israeli forces, who, according to military reports, are targeting Hezbollah facilities. To date, approximately 80,000 people have been evacuated from northern Israel.