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Israeli war jets launched a large- scale offensive on the Gaza Strip on Tuesday with more than 100 airstrikes on militant targets, killing 23 Palestinians and wounding more than 90, medics and security officials said.
A Gaza emergency spokesman told reporters that seven Palestinians, including two children, were killed and 15 other injured when Israeli war jets struck with missiles a militant house in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis.
He also said that three were killed in an airstrike on a car in Gaza city, one killed in an airstrike on a training facility in central Gaza Strip, another two, including a child, killed in an air raid on a motorbike in eastern Gaza city and one killed when driving a three-wheel motorbike in northern Gaza Strip.
Later, nine more Palestinians were confirmed dead in a new round of Israeli air strike.
Palestinian security officials in Gaza said that since midnight Tuesday, when the Israeli government decided to launch a large- scale offensive on the Gaza Strip, Israeli war jets and helicopters have carried out more than 120 airstrikes on towns, cities, lands and buildings in the strip.
At least 10 houses in the Gaza Strip that belong to the militants involved in firing the rockets were destroyed, security officials said. Owners of the houses said they received anonymous phone calls before the strike asking families to evacuate from the houses within ten minutes, then ten minutes later, Israeli air strike came and destroy them.
For the first time since the tension started in Gaza, Hamas armed wing al-Qassam Brigades said in a press statement on Monday that it fired dozens of rockets into Israel's depth.
"Al-Qassam Brigades strike the Israeli towns of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Netivot with dozens of rockets in response to the Zionist aggression," the group said in an emailed press statement sent to reporters.
Other Hamas armed wings, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the pro-Hamas Popular Resistance Committees, also claimed responsibility for firing five rockets on the southern Israeli cities of Ashkelon and Sederout.
Since Saturday Gaza militants have fired more than 300 rockets, projectiles and mortars from the Gaza Strip into Israel, according to various militants' group figures.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday called on Israel to immediately stop its airstrikes on Gaza. The Palestinian official state-run news agency "Wafa" reported that Abbas warned Israel of the dangers to escalate the situation, adding that he called on the international community's intervention.
"The international community has to intervene immediately to stop the serious Israeli escalation that will drag the entire region into more destruction and instability," Abbas said.
Hamas has held Israel responsible for the ongoing conflict, saying that "the Israeli enemy is practicing all kinds of aggression on our people and we are able to defend ourselves and our people."
