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Al-Arish - Ten members of the same family died overnight when the Egyptian air force shelled a civilian home in the Sinai Peninsula by mistake, local sources told dpa on Wednesday.
The ten, including three women and three children, were dead on arrival at al-Arish General Hospital in the provincial capital, a hospital official said.
A local security official told dpa that an airstrike hit the home of a local tribal judge by mistake.
Egyptian security forces have engaged in a series of campaigns since August 2011 to suppress jihadist groups operating in the remote desert peninsula bordering Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip.
They have claimed numerous successes and the deaths of many militants. Activists say that civilians have also suffered severe losses to property and occasional fatalities in the campaign.
Due to restrictions on journalists operating in the area, which has been declared a military zone, such information cannot usually be confirmed.
Militant attacks have also killed scores of police and soldiers.
The army on Monday announced that a buffer zone along the 13km border with the Gaza Strip would be extended to 1km inside Egyptian territory.
The zone, initiated after an October attack in which 30 troops were killed, is intended to prevent smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Sinai being reinstated.
