Palestinian Legislator, and head of the committee of internal affairs and security at the Legislative Council, Mohammad Dahlan, said on Friday that the Israeli attacks against the residents of the Gaza Strip, especially in Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun and Khan Younis will not bring about security for Israel, and will not achieve stability in the area.
The statements of Dahlan came after the Israeli forces killed twenty-two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in less than 48 hours, several residents were injured. Among the casualties were women and children.
Dahlan described the Israeli attacks as war crimes, especially after the army shelled residential compounds and civilian houses.
Also, Dahlan said that reoccupying the northern part of the Gaza Strip and creating a buffer zone will drag the area into a series of retaliations and further violence.
Dahlan slammed the siege Israel is imposing over the Gaza Strip barring the entry of food, fuel and medications and warned of a human disaster in Gaza.
Dahlan called on the United States, the Quartet and the European Union to pressure Israel in order to stop its operations in the Gaza Strip, to stop shelling residential areas, and to stop shelling and destroying the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip.
He also demanded that the border crossings should be opened in order to enable thousands of residents stuck on the Egyptian and Palestinian sides of the Rafah crossing to cross to their desired destinations.
On the ground, Israeli soldiers killed at least five Palestinians and injured several other residents in an air strike that targeted a Al Salateen residential neighborhood in the town of Beit Lahia Thursday evening.
The attack raised the death toll to 22 in the past 22 hours of the latest Israeli military invasion into the Gaza Strip with an average of one death per hour.
Ten Palestinians were killed in two separate attacks which targeted the northern and southern areas in the Gaza Strip Thursday afternoon.
Eight Palestinians were killed in an air strike in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, and two others were killed in another air strike targeting the Abasan area near the city of Khan Younis.
Medical sources reported a total of at least 60 injuries on Thursday, in addition to hundreds who were treated for shock, especially among children.
Seven Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the early hours of Thursday morning as the Israeli government gave the army orders to carry out a major offensive into the strip, Palestinian sources said.
In a separate incident, the Popular Resistance Committees declared responsibility for killing an Israeli soldier in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.
A statement by the group said that a Palestinian sniper shot the soldier in his head while he sat on his unit’s tank which invaded the city Thursday afternoon.
