Israeli fire hit a house in the Gaza Strip on Monday while a family was eating breakfast, killing six Palestinians, including four children and their mother.
"This aggression does not serve efforts being exerted to achieve calm, and it obstructs the peace process," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement carried by WAFA news agency.
They said four children -- siblings whose ages ranged from 1-1/2 to 5 years old -- and their mother were killed in the house during what the Israeli military described as an operation against rocket launching crews and snipers.
A 17-year-old Palestinian civilian who was passing by the home was also killed in the explosion.
eparately, Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian gunman from Islamic Jihad during fighting in the town, the group said.
Another Palestinian militant was shot dead later in the day, according medical workers.
The Israeli military said aircraft and a tank unit fired at groups of gunmen that tried to approach troops in the town but no houses were targeted.
Hamas's armed wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam brigades, said it fired 3 rockets at the Israeli border town of Sderot in response to the Beit Hanoun killings. There were no reports of casualties.
Hamas described deaths in Beit Hanoun as a "war crime."
After the latest violence, leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Resistance Committees and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine traveled from Gaza to Cairo for talks with Egyptian intelligence officials on a possible ceasefire with Israel.
Israel has balked at entering into a formal agreement with Hamas but has said it would have no reason to attack in the Gaza Strip if Palestinians stopped their rocket fire.
While representatives of various Palestinian resistance groups were heading to Cairo Monday, April 28, to discuss a truce, Israeli occupation forces killed at least seven people in Gaza, including four young siblings.
An Israeli tank fired a shell a one-storey Palestinian house in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun while the family was having breakfast.
The bombing immediately killed four siblings whose ages ranged from 1 to 5 years old.
The victims were identified as Mussab Abu Maateq, one, Hana Abu Maateq, three, Rudeina Abu Maateq, four, and Saleh Abu Maateq, five.
Their mother died of her critical wounds in hospital, doctors at the Kamal Oudwan hospital said.
Nine other people were wounded in the Israeli attack, including two other siblings who are in life-threatening conditions.
A Palestinian resistance fighter was killed in an exchange of fire with the invading Israeli occupation troops in the area.
A 14-year-old Palestinian girl was killed by Israeli occupation forces Sunday in nearby Beit Lahiya.
An air and ground blitz unleashed by Israel against Gaza in February claimed the lives of more than 129 people, including more than 40 children, toddlers and newborn babies, as well as 13 women.
The onslaught came one day after Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai threatened to turn the sealed off Strip into a "bigger holocaust" for the Palestinians.
At least 443 people, the vast majority of them Palestinians, have been killed since the US-hosted Annapolis peace conference in November.
The latest Israeli aggression came as representatives of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), headed to Cairo.
Hamas last week offered Israel a six-month truce, including an end to rocket fire into Israel, if Israel lifted an embargo on the territory.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday gave his unconditional support to Egypt's mediation efforts.
A proposal put forward by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit stipulates a ceasefire, the opening of the border crossings, a lifting of the blockade and finally the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Israel has been closing the Gaza Strip's exits to the outside world since last June.
It has completely locked down the coastal area, home to nearly 1.6 million people, since January.
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