Israel has intensified its attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip, leaving at least five Palestinians dead and dozens injured in its fresh incursions, reports say.

Israeli tanks, gunboats and fighter jets jointly targeted the Gaza Strip on Thursday.

Two Palestinians were killed and 25 were injured in the Gaza City. Another two people were also killed and 14 wounded in Rafah.

An Israeli helicopter gunship flying over Gaza machine-gunned a 17-year-old collecting scrap from the enclave’s derelict airport and killed him, medics said.

Israeli army has confirmed that its planes and ground forces have attacked the Gaza Strip and have killed five Palestinians.

Palestinian medics said at least 30 people were injured in three hours of attacks by Israeli forces. Among the injured is a 4-year-old Palestinian girl in the Gaza Strip.

The Tel Aviv regime has been recurrently bombarding Gaza ever since its 22-day war on the impoverished enclave in December 2008 and January 2009, which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and inflicted a damage of $1.6 billion on the region’s already-stagnant economy.

The offensives are often launched under the usual pretext of responding to the purported firing of projectiles.

The Israeli hostility rages on while Tel Aviv refuses to lift an all-out blockade it imposed on Gaza in mid-June 2007.

The siege has deprived the Gaza population of food, fuel and medicine, triggering stunted growth and malnutrition among most Palestinian children, reports say.

(Press TV)