GAZA CITY – Emboldened by a mild international and Arab reaction, Israeli occupation forces killed ten Palestinians on Sunday, March 2, in its continued air and ground blitz against the Gaza Strip.
Three people were killed in an Israeli strike on Jabaliya, which has borne the brunt of the Israeli blitz, according to IslamOnline.net’s correspondent.
One Palestinian also died inside his Jabaliya home from Israeli gunfire.
An Israeli aircraft fired at a civilian vehicle in a residential neighborhood of Jabaliya, killing Khalil Ezz el-Dine.
Another targeted a mosque in Rafah claiming the lives of 21-month-old baby girl Safaa Abou Youssef, Wessam Abd Rabbu, Emmad el-Talaa and Sobhi Abdullah.
Khaled Monzer Rayyan, a Hamas fighter, succumbed to wounds he suffered in Saturday’s fighting.
At least 67 Palestinians, including scores of women and children, were killed on Saturday, March 1.
Sunday’s fatalities take to at least 115 the number of Palestinians, third of them children, killed in four days of Israeli raids and air strikes in the Gaza Strip.
While innocent civilians continued to fall, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert remained defiant.
"It must be clear that Israel has no intention to stop for one moment the fight against terror organizations," he told the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday.
Olmert adamantly brushed off criticism that the blitz is using excessive force in the densely packed territory.
Palestinians lament the sepulchral silence of the international community while they are being slaughtered by Israel.
Under the yoke of an American veto threat, the UN Security Council has failed, again, Saturday to issue a resolution condemning Israel’s aggression on Gaza civilians.
Unity
Protesting the Israeli offensive, Palestinian President Mahmoud suspended all contacts with Israel.
"The negotiations are suspended, as are all contacts on all levels, because in light of the Israeli aggression such communication has no meaning," his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said in a statement.
Abbas ordered the negotiating team to suspend all contacts with Israel until the aggression stops.
"The Israeli government has decided to prosecute an unjust war and the open slaughter of our people. It bears sole responsibility for the hindering the peace process and all the effects and consequences of this decision."
Thousands of Palestinians swarmed onto streets across the occupied West Bank on Sunday to protest the Israeli offensive.
They appealed for national unity between rival Fatah and Hamas.
In the biggest gathering, around 4,000 people took to the streets in the northern town of Nablus demanding national unity.
Around 2,000 people in Ramallah also demonstrated waving both Hamas and Fatah flags and calling for unity.
Abbas’s Fatah and rival Hamas shared power in a unity government for three months last year.
The rift widened last June after Abbas sacked the government, headed by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, after Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip.
The West Bank demonstration turned bloody after Israeli occupation forces opened fire, wounding more than 70 protestors.
Mahmoud al-Musalmi, 13, breathed his last in the southern town of Hebron after Israeli soldiers shot him.
(IslamOnline.net and agencies)
