Israeli strike in Gaza kills seven people, including two women, medics say

CAIRO, June 6 (Reuters): An Israeli strike killed at least seven Palestinians including two women in Gaza on Saturday, health officials said, as mediators restarted talks in Cairo with Hamas and other factions over safeguarding a strained ceasefire agreement.
Medics said seven people were killed and 15 others, including children, were wounded when an Israeli airstrike targeted a large tent encampment in the heart of Gaza City.
An Israeli military spokesperson told Reuters the military had carried out a strike targeting "terrorists", but provided no further details.
A ceasefire brokered by US President Donald Trump has failed to halt Israeli attacks and left Israel in control of more than half the enclave after the war began with Palestinian group Hamas' attacks on southern Israel in October 2023.
Indirect talks on a second phase of the deal - including Hamas disarmament and Israeli troop withdrawals - have stalled.
On Saturday, Egypt began hosting a new round of truce talks with leaders from Hamas and other Palestinian factions expected to last for a few days, Hamas and other sources close to the negotiation said.
Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesperson in Gaza, said the talks would focus on Israel's implementation of the first phase, and reaching common ground on proceeding toward the second phase.
Hamas told mediators, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and envoys of Trump's Board of Peace that ending Israeli attacks in Gaza was essential for any progress, sources from the group and officials close to the talks said.
Hamas wants Israel to end attacks, allow more aid into Gaza and withdraw to ceasefire lines.
Some 950 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since the truce began, according to figures from Gaza health officials. Hamas rarely provides detail on deaths among its fighters.
Four Israeli soldiers have been killed by militants over the same period, Israel's military has said.
Israel says its strikes aim to thwart imminent attacks and that it allows aid and goods into Gaza.
US Central Command says strikes hit sites in Goruk and on Qeshm Island along the strategic waterway.
Nearly 73,000 people in Gaza have been killed since the war started, most of them civilians, according to Gaza health authorities.
Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 Israeli and foreign hostages in its October 7, 2023, attacks, Israel has said.
AFP adds, the Palestinian health ministry said Israeli gunfire killed an infant and wounded his parents on Friday in the occupied West Bank.
Sam Fahd Abou Haikal, aged seven months, died and his parents were lightly injured "after the occupation forces opened fire on them on Friday evening" in the south of the city of Hebron, the ministry said.
The Israeli military said its forces had opened fire after "soldiers perceived a vehicle accelerating toward them", but said an initial inquiry found the three Palestinians were "uninvolved civilians" and expressed "deep sorrow" for any harm caused.
Dr Tareq Barbarawi, the director of a Hebron hospital, had earlier told AFP the child had been taken into care with "serious" injuries.
According to Palestinian news agency Wafa, the Israeli army fired towards the family's car.
Since the war in Gaza broke out in October 2023 with Hamas's attack on Israel, near-daily violence has rocked the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed at least 1,080 Palestinians since then, including both militants and civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry data.
Official Israeli figures show that at least 46 Israelis, both civilians and soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the same period.