Five Palestinian schoolchildren aged 6-14 were killed Thursday when one of them kicked an unexploded Israeli tank shell fired in recent days, Palestinian officials said, according to Al Jazeera satellite channel.
The latest AFP update put the number of victims at four, all related.
According to an Amnesty International report issued in only the first few months of the latest Palestinian uprising, Israeli troops had killed around 100 Palestinian children. The number of Palestinian children killed has been climbing ever since.
The blast shattered a relative calm that had settled over the Palestinian territories amid fresh US-led peace efforts this week, the agency said.
The shell was in a schoolyard in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip when the children found it, and one of them kicked it, Colonel Khaled Abu Al Ula, charged with liaising with Israeli forces in the area, told the agency.
Hospital officials said they had taken charge of one intact body and three pairs of severed hands.
The victims were identified as Mohammed Al Astal, 14, his six-year-old brother Akram, and their cousins Omer Al Astal, 14 and his brother Annis, 10.
Another member of the extended family, Ahmed Al Astal, 10, was also seriously injured in the explosion, and apparently died of his wounds later.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said the Palestinian Authority had sent an urgent message "to the United States, Europe and all the countries in the world about this crime.
"We told them Israel is responsible for the shelling and shooting and destruction, and leaving behind unexploded shells."
Palestinian security officials had earlier accused the Israelis of firing tank shells in the area and killing three children, a charge the army denied.
The army said it was still investigating the circumstances surrounding the deaths.
However, there have been other reports of Israeli shelling of the Palestinian lands.
The Palestinian official news agency (WAFA) reported Wednesday night that Israeli tanks renewed their attack on Rafah on the border with Egypt, wounding four Palestinians, and reinforced its presence in the north of the Gaza Strip.
Also in Rafah, meanwhile, an Israeli tank speeding near an Israeli post turned over. No injuries were reported, but WAFA said that when the Israeli rescue teams arrived, troops opened fire randomly at Palestinian civilians watching the scene, moderately wounding two children.
In Hebron, the agency said, Israeli bulldozers razed a multiple-storey building in Jabal Johar.
Over 700 Palestinians and more than 180 Israelis have been killed in the uprising, which pits the Palestinians against a 34-year occupation of their land by Israelis armed to the teeth by the US - Albawaba.com
