AT LEAST FIVE people were killed by Israeli fire today, including two children, Gazan authorities said.

Two Palestinians were killed at dawn when a tent was bombed in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, according to the civil defence rescue service, which operates under Hamas authority.

A 10-year-old girl was also killed by Israeli artillery fire north of Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, according to the civil defence and the city’s Nasser Hospital.

The Israeli army told news agency AFP it had no knowledge of the incidents.

A four-year-old was killed in an Israeli airstrike on al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, the civil defence said, adding that an “entire residential block was damaged as a result of the bombing” and that a mother and her child were rescued from under the rubble of another house.

One person was killed and five others were injured in another airstrike in Khan Yunis, the rescue service told AFP.

In a separate incident, a security source in Gaza City told AFP that “Israeli warplanes fired three missiles at a water desalination plant in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood… destroying it”.

Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem condemned the bombing, saying it was a “further attempt to deprive [Gazans] of all means of survival”.

In response to an AFP inquiry, the army said it did not target the desalination plant, but rather a nearby Hamas weapons storage facility, one of two such depots it struck on Monday.

“These facilities, established inside two mosques in the Gaza Strip, were used by Hamas terrorists to conceal and store weapons. Prior to the strikes, advance warnings were issued to the population in order to mitigate harm to civilians,” the army said, noting the other facility was in Deir al-Balah.

An October ceasefire has reduced but not halted the violence in Gaza.

Israeli operations have killed 1,288 people since the ceasefire came into effect, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

The Israeli army has reported five deaths in its ranks over the same period, as well as the death of one civilian contractor.