REUTERS, Gaza

An Israeli airstrike killed at least three Palestinians in the Gaza Strip yesterday, health officials said, as mediators met leaders from Hamas in an effort to shore up a US-brokered ceasefire deal.

Medics said the strike had hit a group of men outside a school in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. There was no immediate comment by the Israeli military.

At Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, the bodies of those killed lay on the ground in white shrouds outside the morgue as relatives and friends arrived to bid them farewell. Some kissed the victims’ foreheads before holding special prayers.

“This isn’t a truce; it’s a trap for our young men. Every day there are martyrs, every single day. How long can this continue?” said Umm Hussam Abu El-Rous, a female relative of one of the victims.