GAZA CITY/SANAA, 6 August 2006 — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held talks with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa yesterday as four Palestinians were killed in continued Israeli aggression in the Gaza Strip.

Yemen’s official news agency Saba said Abbas briefed Saleh on “efforts to achieve an inter-Palestinian reconciliation and unifying the Palestinian national ranks.”

The Yemeni leader called on the UN Security Council “to shoulder its responsibility and help bring to an end the escalating Israeli aggression on the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples,” Saba said.

Abbas arrived in Sanaa earlier yesterday as part of an Arab tour amid a massive Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. The Palestinian leader has already visited Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, two Palestinian teenaged siblings and two fighters were killed by fire in the Gaza Strip as the Israeli military pressed an incursion in the southern city of Rafah.

Omar Al-Nuri, 17, and his 15-year-old sister Kiffah were killed by a missile fired from a drone as they fled an Israeli tank near their house in the Egyptian border town of Rafah, hospital officials said. Their mother Huda, 45, and another unidentified family member were in critical condition after being wounded in the strike, hospital officials said. A third family member was lightly wounded.

Earlier, two armed fighters were also killed in separate Israeli airstrikes in the area, hospital and security officials said.

Mohammed Al-Khawajih, 23, belonged to the military wing of the Islamic Jihad group, while Sharif Ayyash, 23, to that of the governing Islamist movement Hamas.

An Israeli Army spokesman said that “four armed terrorists were hit by army fire in two separate incidents in the Rafah sector.”

The Israeli Army has been involved in a major incursion around Rafah since early Thursday, which has involved dozens of armored personnel carriers and bulldozers backed up by aviation.

According to an AFP count, 15 Palestinians have been killed in the operation, including a 12-year-old boy and at least 11 fighters.

An army spokesman said that “more than 35 Palestinian terrorists have been eliminated in army operations in the Gaza Strip over the past 48 hours.” The Rafah incursion was aimed at destroying “terrorist infrastructure.”

— With input from agencies