GAZA CITY, September 30 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Israeli occupation forces killed 22 Palestinians, including seven people slain by a tank shell, in a fresh invasion of a Gaza Strip refugee camp Thursday, September 30.

At least seven Palestinians were killed by an Israeli tank shell in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north of the strip Thursday, Palestinian hospital and security sources told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“We have received at least seven bodies and 10 injured people," Mahmud Al-Assali, head of Jabaliya's Kamal Edwan hospital said.

Another eight wounded were taken to another hospital.

Witnesses said the shell fell on a group of Palestinians who had gathered at the entrance to the camp.

An Israeli military source confirmed troops had fired a tank shell towards a “densely populated market near a school in Jabaliya”, claiming Palestinian resistance fighters had twice used the area as cover for firing at Israeli troops.

“The soldiers shot one tank shell at the source of fire in that area,” the source said, adding that three Israeli soldiers had been lightly injured in the area earlier.

The latest violence raised the death toll to 27 Palestinians and six Israelis killed since the army moved en masse into the northern Gaza Strip late Tuesday in a bid to stop Palestinian rocket fire.

Eleven Palestinians were also killed in the invasion of Israeli soldiers, who pushed deep into Jabaliya Thursday, the largest Palestinian refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip earlier in the day.

A 60-year-old man was also shot dead by the Israeli forces. Two other people were killed by Israeli fire near the refugee camp, after a series of Israeli raids overnight that killed three others.

A Palestinian cameraman working for a local media agency was seriously wounded by fire in the same area, medics said.

Large scale destruction by Israeli tanks and bulldozers

The deaths bring to 4,383 the number of people killed since the beginning of the Palestinian Intifadah against occupation forces four years ago, including 3,356 Palestinians and 953 Israelis, according to an AFP count.

On the other side, three Israeli soldiers and three Jewish settlers were killed Thursday in a fresh attack by Palestinian activists on an army post in northern Gaza.

The Israeli soldiers were killed in fierce clashes that followed the attack on the post, to the north east of Beit Lahiya, Al-Jazeera reported.

Hamas armed wing, Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the operation, saying its two attackers were also killed in the ensuing clashes.

Israeli soldiers have been widely accused of carrying out several violations in occupied Palestinian territories.

An Israeli settler lost her child

Late Wednesday, a Palestinian rocket attack killed two children in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, as families filled the streets to celebrate the start of Succot, the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles.

In the aftermath of the strike by the Qassam rockets, a government spokesman said Israel would take every necessary measure to protect itself from Palestinian rocket fire.

Qassam rockets are named after the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas. They can carry a five-kilo (11-pound) explosive charge and have a 10-kilometre (six-mile) range, but are generally inaccurate.