At least six citizens were killed and many injured after a bomb fell early this morning on a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp, the official Wafa news agency reported.

Seven others were killed in a similar incident in the northern town of Beit Lahia.

In Al-Maskar area, west of the city of Khan Yunis, one woman was killed and dozens were wounded in another Israeli air raid.

Wafa warned that ‘ambulances are facing extreme difficulties in transporting the wounded and the bodies of martyrs due to the continuous bombardment’.

Meanwhile, on the ground, Israeli troops have in recent hours reinforced the siege on several Gazan hospitals, especially against the Al-Shifa medical complex, the largest in the coastal enclave.

Israel claims that the headquarters of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) is hidden under the building, which has been repeatedly denied by NGOs, UN agencies and Palestinians.

If we are still alive tomorrow we will set up a mass grave in the Shifa compound to bury 100 martyrs, because we cannot go out and bury them, Munir al-Barsh, a Gaza health official, warned Al Jazeera television last night.

The Indonesian, Al-Nars, Al-Rantisi and Ophthalmology hospitals, among others, are also surrounded by the military.

In this context, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry yesterday accused Israel of ‘kidnapping the hospitals (in the Strip) as hostages to extort money’ from the international community.

The neighboring nation continues its siege against these facilities to blackmail the world for political gain and force Palestinians to move south in a ‘new episode of genocide,’ it warned.

mh/abo/rgh/rob