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Six Palestinians killed in Israel-Gaza conflicts

06 September 2012 18:49 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Six Palestinian militants were killed and two others injured in less than 24 hours in a new escalation of violence between Israel and militant groups in the Gaza Strip, ruled by the Islamic Hamas movement, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

Medical sources in Gaza told Xinhua on Thursday that three Palestinian bodies and one person in critical conditions were recovered in the northern town of Beit Hanoun closed to the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel after they were hit by Israeli shelling.

An Israeli army ground force, backed by tanks and bulldozers, rolled into the northern part of the town and fired more than four shells at the area, one of which hit the four Palestinians.

An Israeli army spokesman told Israeli radio that the tanks shelling targeted a group of gunmen who were planting a roadside bomb near the fence of the borderline between the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Late Wednesday, an Israeli airstrike killed another three Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip in an Israeli airstrike on the militants who were trying to launch homemade rockets from central Gaza Strip to southern Israel.

The medical sources said that the three militants were recognized as Khaled al-Qerem, Khalil al-Jerba and Zakareya al- Jammal who were killed after an Israeli army air-to-ground missile hit them with another one critically injured east of al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip.

"The squad was involved in previous rocket launches at communities located in southern Israel," the Israel Defense Forces told Xinhua.

A radical Islamic Salafi group, "Shoura Council of the Mujahidin" on Sunday claimed responsibility for launching two homemade rockets from Gaza Strip at southern Israel, saying that the rocket attacks are a response to the daily Israeli assaults on the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Fawzi Barhoum, said "The aim of the Israeli escalation of violence on our people is to spread fear and confusion among our people and also to disturb the status of calm that has dominated the Gaza Strip over the past few months."

Barhoum added that "the Palestinian people have the ability to defend themselves and confront the Israeli aggression," calling for an immediate Arab and international intervention to hold back escalation of violence on Gaza.

Nabil Abu Rdineh, spokesman of the Palestinian Presidency in the West Bank, condemned in a press statement published by the official state-run news agency "Wafa" the killing of six Palestinians in Gaza and called on Israel to immediately stop the escalation that would only lead to more violence.

In June, up to 14 Palestinians were killed and 70 others wounded in another wave of violence between Israel and militants in the coastal enclave. The two sides finally agreed to renew a calm agreement mediated by Egypt.

Hamas, which has been ruling the Gaza Strip since it seized control of it in June 2007, had said that it would watch to what extent Israel would be committed to the clam agreement.

Since the three-week Israeli war on the Gaza Strip in early 2009, the enclave has been witnessing frequent conflicts between the Israeli army and various militant groups in the enclave.