The Taliban government says four members of the same family, including two children, have been killed by Pakistani artillery and mortar fire in eastern Afghanistan.

The deaths reported on Thursday bring the toll to seven people killed in Afghanistan since Tuesday in cross-border clashes, according to authorities in Kabul.

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Fighting between the two countries intensified on February 26 when Afghanistan launched an offensive along their shared borde in retaliation for earlier Pakistani air strikes targeting the Pakistan Taliban, just two days before the United States and Israel attacked Iran, speaking a sprawling regional war.

Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said the latest deaths happened early on Thursday in the village of Sadqo in Khost province as he accused Pakistan of deliberately targeting civilian homes and nomads’ tents.

“Four members of a nomad family, including one woman and one man, as well as two children – one girl and one boy – were killed and three other children were wounded,” he wrote on X.

The provincial governor’s office gave the same death toll.

Pakistan maintains that it does not target civilians, and casualty claims from both sides are difficult to verify independently.

In Islamabad, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Tahir Hussain Andrabi told reporters that Pakistan had conducted “targeted operations with due diligence, with the principle of firm checking and ensuring that no civilian is hurt”.

On Tuesday, Fitrat said three civilians were killed by Pakistani shells in the border province of Paktia. Medical sources gave the same toll to the AFP news agency.

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Islamabad accuses Kabul of harbouring fighters from the Pakistan Taliban, which has claimed responsibility for a series of deadly attacks inside Pakistan, and from the ISIS (ISIL) affiliate in Khorasan Province. Afghan authorities deny the charge.

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan has said 56 civilians have been killed there, including 24 children, by Pakistani military operations from February 26 to March 5.

Pakistani officials have confirmed about 12 soldiers were killed and 27 wounded in the latest bout of fighting while the Taliban claims to have killed more than 150.

About 115,000 people have been forced to leave their homes, according to the UN.