A massive air strike conducted by the Israeli Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip on Friday brought death to four Palestinian militants, a move which was labeled by many as representing a heightening of the military incursions Israel has been performing in the Palestinian territories for a few months now, Reuters informs.

The news was confirmed by several spokespeople for Hamas, who declared that a car carrying four members of the elite unit of the group's armed wing had become the target of an Israeli missile and that a Hamas commander, who had been the subject of previous assassination attempts, Ammar Mushtaha, was among the dead. Also, one of those killed was one of the bodyguards of one of the ministers in the Palestinian government.

On the other hand, Israeli military sources highlighted that an "aerial attack on a vehicle carrying terrorists" has been successfully completed. Moreover, Israeli troops were said to have conducted an exchange of gunfire with 60 Palestinian gunmen who had taken shelter inside a mosque in downtown Beit Hanoun.

According to Palestinian eye witnesses' reports, the Israeli army employed bulldozers in order to break down one of the walls of the mosque, after which Israeli soldiers threw stun grenades and tear gas inside the mosque in order to force the militants to come out and surrender, which in part worked, since an Israeli military source highlighted that some of the militants halted their armed resistance in the end. The military source stressed upon the fact that some of the gunmen who were arrested had been indeed involved in part of the Qassam rocket attacks against Israeli cities. "We are using every means not to damage the mosque", the source underlined.

In addition to this, Palestinian hospital officials announced that a four year old Palestinian boy died on Friday as a consequence of being subject to a tank shell attack on Thursday, when another child was seriously injured. "The operation is targeting terrorist infrastructure in the area of Beit Hanoun and in particular is against rocket launching infrastructure", the spokesman for the Israeli military stressed.