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On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to ramp up the Israeli campaign against Hamas which has cost 43 Palestinian lives so far.
Wednesday, the second day of “Operation Protective Edge”, saw the deaths of 21 Palestinians, including 15 women and children, caused by Israeli strikes, setting the overall death toll for the past two days at 43, emergency services said. Over 370 people have been injured in the strikes. According to emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra, there was at least one militant, six women and nine children among the deceased on Wednesday, and it is not clear if the other fatalities were militants or civilians.
In at least four strikes, all victims were children and women. On Wednesday afternoon, a missile tore a house apart in beachside refugee camp Al-Maghazi near the city of Deir al-Balah in Gaza, killing a woman and her four children, Qudra said.
Earlier in the day, four children and two women were killed in several raids to the east and north of Gaza City.
13-year-old Mohammed Aarif and his 12-year-old brother Amir Aarif were killed by an air strike on Shejaiya to the east of Gaza City. 27-year-old Amina Malaka and her 18-month-old boy Mohammed were killed by an attack on the Zeitun district. Further north, a missile struck the city of Beit Hanun, killing 40-year-old woman Sahar al-Masri and her 14-year-old boy Ibrahim, Qudra added.
An attack after midnight tore through a house in the town of Beit Hanun, killing senior Islamic Jihad commander Hafez Hammad and five relatives, including a 16-year-old girl and two women.
In the town of Mughraqa in Gaza, an air strike leveled a house and killed 80-year-old Naifeh Farajallah while another missile killed two men near the Nusseirat refugee camp, named by medics as 60-year-old Abdel Nasser Abu Kweik and his 31-year-old son Khaled.
In an air strike early in the day, a 30-year-old man was killed in the city of Rafah, while in the town of Beit Lahiya, a missile struck a motorbike, killing a 30-year-man and wounding a second person.
“We have decided to further intensify the attacks on Hamas and the terror organizations in Gaza.The army is prepared for any eventuality.Hamas will pay a heavy price for the firing of rockets at Israeli civilians. Security for the citizens of Israel is first and foremost”, his office quoted him saying after he met with defense chiefs.
Later in the day, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.
“It’s genocide — the killing of entire families is genocide by Israel against our Palestinian people.What’s happening now is a war against the Palestinian people as a whole and not against the (militant) factions.We know that Israel is not defending itself, it is defending settlements, its main project.We are moving in several ways to stop the Israeli aggression and spilling of Palestinian blood, including talking to Egyptian President (Abdel Fattah) al-Sisi and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon”, he said, after holding a crisis meeting with the Palestinian leadership in the city of Ramallah in West Bank.