Gaza, MINA – Israel has killed 30 Palestinians and injured more than 90 others in air attacks on the Gaza Strip since Tuesday, the Palestinian health ministry has said, Al Jazeera reported on Friday.
The victims include six children and three women as well as the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) rocket force and his deputy.
Palestinian factions in Gaza continued to fire rockets in retaliation from the besieged coastal enclave into Israel, killing one person on Thursday.
Amid mediation efforts by Egypt, neither side seemed ready to douse the worst flare-up since August, now in its third day.
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“We are at the height of a campaign, both offensive and defensive,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a videotaped statement issued during a visit to an air base.
The deaths of Ali Ghali and Ahmed Abu Daqqa brought to five the number of senior figures from PIJ killed since Israel began attacking Gaza early on Tuesday.
Cairo, which hosted senior PIJ official Mohammad al-Hindi for talks, was circumspect about prospects for a ceasefire.
“Egypt’s efforts to calm things down and resume the political process have not yet borne fruit,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told reporters.
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Meeting Jordanian, French and German counterparts in Berlin, Shoukry urged “peace-sponsoring countries to intervene and stop the attacks” and said Israel must “stop the unilateral measures that aim to destroy the future of the Palestinian state. (T/RE1)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
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