Tensions continued to escalate in the besieged Gaza Strip on Thursday, with reports of one Palestinian woman killed by Israeli shelling

Tensions continued to escalate in the besieged Gaza Strip on Thursday, with reports of one Palestinian woman killed by Israeli shelling, as Israeli occupation forces claimed airstrikes were in response to Palestinian resistance groups targeting its troops with mortar rounds.

Medical sources told Maan news agency that a Palestinian woman in her fifties, identified as Jana Aytah al-Amur, was killed by Israeli shelling on Thursday evening in the al-Fakhari area east of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Medical sources also said that an Israeli airstrike injured a Palestinian woman, identified as 21-year-old Khazima al-Farra, in the al-Rayyan area in eastern Rafah.

Witnesses told Maan that Israeli F-16 jets launched several rockets in the southern Gaza Strip at around 5 p.m., hitting agricultural land in the Abu al-Rus area in eastern Rafah.

Earlier in the day, Israeli air strikes hit four targets in Gaza overnight, wounding four people, three of them children. Medical sources in Gaza said a raid on the Al-Zeitoun district wounded four members of the same family -- three children and a 65-year-old man.