Three more Palestinians killed as Israel pounds Gaza Strip again

Three more Palestinians have lost their lives and several others sustained injuries when Israeli military aircraft and artillery unit shelled positions across the blockaded Gaza Strip anew.

 Ashraf al-Qidra, the spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, said 26-year-old Khaled Riyad Ahmed al-Sultan was killed and another civilian wounded when Israeli shells fell onto Salatin area west of the city of Beit Lahia, located about five kilometers north of Gaza City.

The statement added that Musab Hus, 20, also died and three others were wounded during an Israeli attack on an area east of the al-Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City.

Khaled Akram Yousef Marouf, 29, was also killed in an Israeli strike that targeted a group of civilians in the northern sector of the besieged coastal sliver.

Later in the day, an Israeli unmanned aerial vehicle fired a missile at a residential building in the al-Shuja'iyya neighborhood district of Gaza City. There were no immediate reports about possible casualties and the extent of damage caused.

Israeli military aircraft also struck civilian neighborhoods in al-Barkah area east of Beit Lahia, though no reports of casualties were quickly available.

The developments came less than a day after Israeli warplanes conducted a string of airstrikes throughout the Gaza Strip, killing three people.

The Israeli military announced in a statement that the aerial assaults were carried out shortly after the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement fired an intense barrage of rockets against settlements in the southern part of the occupied territories, triggering air sirens. 

Palestinian officials and witnesses said the Israeli military bombed the studios of the Arabic-language al-Aqsa satellite television network, which is affiliated to Hamas. There was no immediate word of any casualties in the airstrike.

On Tuesday, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) held Israel responsible for the eruption of violence in the impoverished Gaza Strip.

“The Occupation regime (Israel) is dragging the region into further dangers and tensions,” PA spokesman Youssef al-Mahmoud said in a statement.

He warned the Tel Aviv regime against committing “new massacres against the Palestinian people.”

Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization Saeb Erekat also urged the international community on Tuesday to protect Gaza Strip following Israeli airstrikes on the blockaded coastal enclave.

“We call upon the international community to do everything needed in order to prevent a new massacre in Gaza,” Erekat wrote on his official Twitter page.

He stressed that all Israeli attacks would be reported to the International Criminal Court.

On Sunday night, seven Palestinians, including a senior Hamas commander, were killed when Israeli military forces staged an incursion into the southern Gaza Strip.

One Israeli soldier was reportedly killed and another injured in the raid.

Hamas, resistance factions announce ceasefire with Israel

Later on Tuesday, Hamas and other resistance factions agreed to an Egypt-brokered cease-fire with Israel in Gaza Strip as the recent wave of Israeli aggression against the enclave was threatening to descend into full-blown war.

The groups announced the ceasefire in a joint statement, saying they would abide by the ceasefire as long as Israel did the same.

“Egypt's efforts have been able to achieve a ceasefire between the resistance and the Zionist enemy,” the statement read.

It added, “The resistance will respect this declaration as long as the Zionist enemy respects it.”

In early July 2014, Israel waged a war on the Gaza Strip. The 50-day military aggression, which ended on August 26, 2014, killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including 577 children. Over 11,100 others – including 3,374 children, 2,088 women and 410 elderly people – were also wounded in the war.

The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007. The blockade has caused a decline in the standards of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.

Tensions have been running high near the fence separating the Gaza Strip from the occupied territories ever since anti-occupation protest rallies began in the coastal enclave on March 30. More than 230 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. Nearly 23,000 Palestinians have also sustained injuries.

The Gaza clashes reached their peak on May 14, on the eve of the 70th anniversary of Nakba Day (Day of Catastrophe), which coincided this year with the US embassy relocation from Tel Aviv to occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds.

On June 13, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution, sponsored by Turkey and Algeria, condemning Israel for Palestinian civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip.

The resolution, which had been put forward on behalf of Arab and Muslim countries, garnered a strong majority of 120 votes in the 193-member assembly, with eight votes against and 45 abstentions.

The resolution called on UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to make proposals within 60 days “on ways and means for ensuring the safety, protection, and well-being of the Palestinian civilian population under Israeli occupation,” including “recommendations regarding an international protection mechanism.”

It also called for “immediate steps towards ending the closure and the restrictions imposed by Israel on movement and access into and out of the Gaza Strip.”

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