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No fewer than nine Palestinians, including three local journalists, were killed and others wounded on Saturday in an Israeli air strike on Gaza’s northern Beit Lahiya town as Hamas leaders held ceasefire talks with mediators in Cairo.

The local health ministry, who stated this also said that several were critically injured as the strike hit a car, with casualties inside and outside the vehicle.

According to witnesses and fellow journalists, the people in the car were on a mission for a charity called Al-Khair Foundation in Beit Lahiya, and they were accompanied by journalists and photographers when the strike hit them.

The Palestinian media reported that at least three local journalists were among the dead.

In a statement, the Israeli military said that it had struck two individuals that it identified as terrorists operating a drone that it said posed a threat to forces in Beit Lahiya.

The military later reportedly struck several other suspects who according to it had collected the drone equipment and entered a vehicle.

The military did not say how it had determined that the individuals it had struck were terrorists or provide detail on the threat that the drone had posed to its soldiers.

The incident underscores the fragility of the January 19 ceasefire agreement that halted large-scale fighting in the Gaza Strip.

According to Palestinian health officials, dozens of people have been killed by Israeli fire despite the truce.

Meanwhile, the head of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, Salama Marouf, denied the army’s allegations.

“The team was made of civilians and worked in an area near a shelter on a mission sponsored by a charity. They were not in a prohibited area and didn’t pose any danger of any kind to the occupation army,” Marouf said in a statement.