RAMALLAH, August 20, 2011 (WAFA) – President Mahmoud Abbas Saturday called on the United Nations Security Council to hold an emergency session to discuss Israeli air strikes against the Gaza Strip, which so far claimed 14 lives, including three children.
According to Saeb Erekat, member of the PLO Executive Committee, Abbas instructed Palestine’s representative at the UN, Riyad Mansour, to call for an urgent session for the Security Council in an effort to bring to a halt Israeli attacks on Gaza.
Meanwhile, 14 Palestinians, including three children, were killed in Gaza and more than 40 wounded, most of them civilians, since Israel began its air strikes on Thursday following an armed attack in southern Israel that left eight Israelis dead.
The latest attack late Friday night claimed three dead, including a toddler, according to medical sources.
Witnesses said a missile hit a motorcycle in Sabra neighborhood in Gaza City killing a physician, his brother and a 15-months-old baby.
Munther Qraiqa, 33, who works in the intensive care department at Shifa hospital in Gaza, his brother Mu’taz, 29, and Mu’taz son, Islam, 15 months, were killed in the attack.
The three were returning home after attending to Islam at Shifa hospital.
In an earlier attack also on a motorcycle east of Bureij refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip, two people were killed when a missile hit them, said medical reports.
Imad Abu Abdeh, 21, and Anwar Isleem, 22, were killed in the attack.
A statement by the Islamic Jihad in Gaza said Mu'taz Qraiqa and Imad Abu Abdeh were members of its military wing, Saraya Al-Quds, and Anwar Isleem was a member of the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, the Salah Eddin Brigades.
Israeli air strikes hit various targets in Gaza causing heavy destruction to property, including a library, and other places. Many homes were damaged in the strikes.
Medical sources said Israel was using highly explosive missiles not known before which causes burns all over the body and rips limbs off the body. Others just destroy the body and turn it into bits and pieces.
Armed groups in Gaza continued to fire missiles into Israel in retaliation against the air strikes.
Israeli reports said missiles were fired at Asdod and other areas north of the Gaza Strip. One grad missile hit a location in Asdod, wounding three workers, said the reports. Another missile caused panic and shock.
Israel said more than 30 missiles and mortars were fired from Gaza since the start of the air strikes.
M.A.
