Nine more Palestinians killed; Palestine State condemns Israeli assault
Israeli aircraft struck in Gaza on Saturday as fighting ran into a second day, ending more than a year of relative calm along the border.
Israel on Friday said it had launched a special operation against a Palestinian group, killing one of its senior commanders in a surprise daytime air strike on a high-rise building in Gaza City.
The Israeli strikes killed at least nine more Palestinians, including a child, and wounded 79 people, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
In the occupied West Bank, 19 were apprehended by the Israeli military.
Egypt, the United Nations and Qatar had begun mediating an end to the violence, according to a Palestinian official with knowledge of the efforts, “but no breakthrough yet”, the official said.
Meanwhile the Palestinian Authority official condemned Israel’s attacks.
The State of Palestine condemns the Israeli occupation’s premeditated assault on the Palestinian people in Gaza. It stresses that Israel’s continued aggression, including its recent assault on Gaza and the continued illegal siege of the Strip, is in flagrant and grave breach of every tenet of international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, and United Nations resolutions. The Ministry calls on the international community, in particular the Security Council and High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to take immediate action to bring a halt to this Israeli military aggression against the defenseless Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and to save human lives.
The absence of international accountability continues to encourage Israel, the colonial occupying Power, to persist in carrying out serious international crimes against the Palestinian people, trampling on their human rights and causing widespread death, injury and wanton destruction. The Security Council’s paralysis in particular and familiar to provide protection has led Israel to believe that it has the green light to kill Palestinians, including children, at will and that it can perpetrate its crimes without any consequence.
The priority right now is stopping the Israeli campaign of killing and destruction. Concurrently, ending the exceptional treatment of Israel, the colonial occupying Power, must come to an end. This exceptionalism and the application of double standards has only encouraged its impunity and allowed for the wanton killing and destruction to go on endlessly, shredding any credibility of the international system. Rogue states like Israel that do not respect international law and breach it with utter contempt should not be applauded and appeased by the international community. They must be denounced and held responsible for their crimes.
