Thursday May 11, 2023
Palestinian child injured during Israeli shelling, Gaza, May 10, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/ @MuhammadSmiry
"The Israeli attacks hit residential areas, killing women and children while they were sleeping safely in their homes," the Arab League said.
On Wednesday, the Palestinian Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qedra confirmed that 21 Palestinians were killed, including 12 civilians, and 64 others were injured by the shrapnel of the Israeli missiles on the Gaza Strip.
"The Israeli attacks hit residential areas, killing women and children while they were sleeping safely in their homes," said the Arab League (AL), which includes Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordon, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
The AL reaffirmed that the Palestinian cause is central for the Arab nations and boosting the rights of the Palestinian people is inalienable.
It also condemned the wide-scale Israeli operations against the Palestinians in their cities and camps, calling on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to maintain peace and to pressure Israel to stop the airstrikes.
The AL called on the international community to urge Israel to allow the fact-finding mission mandated by the Human Rights Council to investigate the Israeli operations on the Palestinian territories.The Gaza-based joint chamber of military operations of Palestinian factions claimed firing a barrage of rockets to southern and central Israel on Wednesday, in response to the surprising Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday predawn, which killed three senior members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement's armed wing in the Gaza Strip and their wives and children.
"The chamber claims responsibility for launching hundreds of missiles on the enemy's sites, settlements, and targets, and even Tel Aviv, in response to the assassination of the PIJ leaders," the statement said.
Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh received phone calls from United Nations, Egypt, and Qatar mediating between the Palestinian enclave and Israel to end the flaring tension.
During the phone calls, Haniyeh discussed with the mediators the ways to deal with the Israeli aggression against Gaza in the past two days, and "blamed the Israeli occupation for the escalation and repercussions of this aggression."