GAZA CITY, 17 January 2008 — An Israeli airstrike killed three civilians including a teenager in Gaza Strip yesterday. The attack comes a day after the massacre of 19 Palestinians on Tuesday.
Yesterday’s victims — a 13-year-old boy, his father and uncle — were killed when an Israeli missile hit their car in Gaza City, medics said.
Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal told reporters in Damascus yesterday that the Gaza massacre confirmed the futility of negotiating with Israel.
“This shedding of Palestinian blood will shorten the existence of Israel and will destroy it,” Meshaal said. “No peace with the killers and no security for the criminals.”
Meshaal charged that the eight-day Middle East tour by the US president “gave cover to this massacre,” and he called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to halt the “absurd” peace talks. “Every day you are humiliated (by the Israelis) and you emerge (from talks) empty-handed,” he said.
The missile strike followed the killing of a top Islamic Jihad commander in the occupied West Bank. Another three people were seriously wounded in the strike, while another four Palestinians were wounded in two Israeli raids in the north of the impoverished territory, medics said.
In an early morning gunbattle near the town of Jenin in the northern West Bank, Israeli troops shot dead 40-year-old Walid Obeidi after surrounding his house in the village of Qabatiya, security officials said. Palestinian sources confirmed that Obeidi — the West Bank chief of Islamic Jihad’s armed wing — was killed by the Israelis.
Many shops stayed shut in the Gaza Strip yesterday after a call by Hamas for three days of mourning and a day-long general strike. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa condemned the latest Israeli attack, telling reporters it “raises question marks over the future of efforts to advance Arab-Israeli peace.”
