At least seven Palestinians, including four young siblings, have been killed in Israeli shelling in the Gaza Strip on Monday amid Egypt-mediated efforts to work out a ceasefire between militant faction in the coastal strip and Israel.

Gaza-based Palestinian medics said that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) shelled a house in the northern Beit Hanoun area of the Strip where a family was having breakfast and that the mother of the young victims, critically hurt in the attack, also later succumbed to her injury. Seven others were injured in the attack.

The victims were identified as Khadra Abu Ma’tuq and her children Ahmad Abu Ma’tuq, three-year-old Hana Abu Ma’tuq, four-year-old Salih Abu Ma’tuq, and six-year-old Rudayna Abu Ma’tuq, medics said. A 17-year-old student, Ayyub Atallah, was also killed on his way to school and his friend Mu’tasim Sweilim injured, Palestinian Ma’an News Agency reported. Ibrahim Al-Hjuj, a member of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, the Al-Quds Brigades, was also identified among the dead, the agency reported.