A medic carries the body of a Palestinian child after the Israeli attack

Four Palestinian children and their mother were killed in an Israeli attack on the northern Gaza Strip today

Palestinian doctors said the dead children were Rudina and Hana Abu Meatik, sisters aged six and three, and their brothers, four-year-old Saleh and 15-month-old Mousab

Their mother, Miyasar, was in her late 30s. Her two older children were critically wounded in the strike

"What a black day. They killed my family," Ahmad Abu Meatak, the father of the children, said outside the hospital to which their bodies were taken

Meatak said he had been on his way to a nearby market when the tank shell hit

"I feel sick. I want to throw up the blood that is boiling inside me into the face of the occupation," Ibrahim Abu Meatak, the children's 24-year-old half brother

Last week, Hamas said it would agree to a six-month truce with Israel, but the Israeli government rejected the offer, claiming Hamas would use the lull to rearm