The Israeli army fired a missile, Sunday, at Palestinians in the Hay Al-Tuffah area, northern Gaza Strip, moderately wounding at least three. Israeli military and political leaders threaten a large-scale offensive; Hamas leadership says, “the Palestinians in Gaza will remain steadfast.”
Media sources in Gaza said the missile was fired by an Israeli army drone, targeting Palestinians believed to have launched burning kites into the Israel side.
The Israeli missiles were fired less than one day after an indirect “ceasefire” agreement was reached in an attempt to prevent the region from entering into a new wave of a serious and lengthy military escalation.
According to the Israeli army, several fires broke out across the border fence due to the burning kites, flown from Gaza.
It added that the missile targeted what it called a “Hamas unit that flew incendiary balloons” from the coastal region.
On Sunday at night, Egyptian mediation managed to broker an indirect ceasefire agreement, in an attempt to prevent a full military offensive.
The agreement angered far-right coalition members of the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as they were calling for an immediate large-scaled military offensive in Gaza.
Israeli Ynet News has reported that three fires broke out, earlier Sunday, after “incendiary balloons were flown from Gaza, before the army bombarded Hamas targets.”
Talking to thousands of Palestinians during the funeral procession of the two children, Amir an-Nimra, 15, and his friend Luay Kahil, 16, who were killed by Israeli missiles, Sunday, Hamas political leader Ismael Haniyya, said the “resistance will not allow the Zionist enemy to create and enforce new equations of engagement.”
Haniyya added that several parties intervened to achieve a ceasefire, and that “the resistance is the only side with the upper word on the issue.”
“Gaza stood firm and faced three wars in recent years; it can achieve victories despite the huge sacrifices, the martyrs, the wounded and the serious property damage,” he stated, “The enemy cannot enforce its own designed new rules of engagement, but the resistance stood firm, and continued to retaliate.”
The Hamas official added that the resistance in Gaza “will continue to protect the Palestinian people, will not allow Israel to continue its deadly and excessive use of force.”
“I want to tell our people that the International Community is now standing at an intersection, a main crossing point, due to the ongoing nonviolent protests as they managed to powerfully bring Gaza back to the international arena,” Haniyya said, “Israel needs to understand that we will never abandon our legitimate; it must choose between lifting its illegal, deadly siege on Gaza, or face much more powerful protests.”
“The Deal of the Century was stillborn; I doubt there is a deal anyway, and there isn’t even one party, be it Palestinian, regional or international, who can enforce a deal that our steadfast people, and their resistance, strongly reject,” he added, “We are on the path of resistance for liberation and independence; despite our wounds and suffering, nobody can enforce any deal that ignores our historic rights in Palestine, especially Jerusalem.”
The Great March of Return protests began on March 30, for the commemoration of Land Day, when, in 1976, six Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed by Israeli forces, after protesting the confiscation of their land.
Demonstrations reached a peak on May 14, which marked 70 years since the Nakba – the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, by Zionist militias – upon which more than 60 protesters were shot dead by the Israeli forces.
Over 137 Palestinians, including journalist, medics, women and children, have been killed and some 15,000 others injured, since the outbreak of the protests, on March 30th, 2018.
