Bodies of Palestinian Hamas policemen
are scattered on the ground following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City
on December 27, 2008. About 200 Palestinians were killed and hundreds
wounded in a series of simultaneous Israeli air strikes in Gaza Strip.
(Xinhua/Stringer) Photo Gallery>>>
GAZA, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- Two hundred Palestinians
were killed and 750 others wounded on Saturday in a series of rapid and
intensive Israeli air strikes in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Palestinian
officials said.
"The number of martyrs reached 200 and the wounded
people are 750, including a number of civilian women and children," said Mu'
awia Hassanien, chief of emergency and ambulance services in the Palestinian
health ministry.
Israel launched air strikes against the Gaza Strip
from 11:30 a.m. local time (0930 GMT), hitting more than 30 targets, most of
them security compounds run by the Islamic Hamas movement.
"It was like an earthquake. Within a few minutes
hundreds were killed and injured and dozens of buildings and cars were
completely destroyed," said Gaza storekeeper Ahmed Ghannam.
Most of the victims were members of Hamas security
forces, including its police chief Tawfiq Jaber, chief of Hamas' Security and
Protection Service Ismail al-Jabary and Central Gaza Strip governor Abu Ahmad
Ashour.
The bodies of the killed were piled in the al-Shifa
hospital's corridors because the morgue could not contain the large number of
corpses.
Bodies of Palestinian Hamas policemen
are scattered on the ground following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City
on December 27, 2008. About 200 Palestinians were killed and hundreds
wounded in a series of simultaneous Israeli air strikes in Gaza Strip.
(Xinhua/Stringer) Photo Gallery>>>
According to Hassanien, the number of the dead is the
highest ever to be recorded in a single day since the 1967 six-day war in which
Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
Egypt opened its borders with Gaza to evacuate the
casualties into its hospitals, while Palestinian armed groups started firing
rounds of projectiles into Israeli border towns, killing a woman in Western
Negev community of Netivot and injuring six.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the
attacks and called on Israel to stop them.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad also
expressed the same stance, saying his cabinet was holding intensive contacts
with Arab and international diplomats to halt the Israeli assaults.
Meanwhile, the armed wing of Islamic Hamas movement,
al-Qassam Brigades, threatened to respond to the Israeli attacks. Its militants
fired back dozens of makeshift and grad rockets at southern Israeli towns and
cities.
"We will violently retaliate, god willing, and will
let the (Israeli) occupation know that it has thrown itself into fire by
attacking Gaza," said Abu Obaida, a spokesman for Ezz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades
of Hamas.
Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas, called on
al-Qassam Brigades to continue and intensify rocket fire into Israeli
communities bordering Gaza, blaming "the silent and still Arab position on Gaza
massacre."
GAZA, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas on Saturday condemned Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip which killed
more than 140 Palestinians and wounded 200.
"President Abbas strongly condemns this harsh aggression
that Israel is waging now against the Gaza Strip," said Nabil Abu Rdineh,
spokesman for the Palestinian presidency. Full story
GAZA, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic Hamas movement would
never yield to Israel, vowed former Palestinian prime minister of Hamas Ismail
Haneya on Saturday.
Haneya voiced the stance in a letter to the Palestinian
people, which was carried by a pro-Hamas website, after Israel launched air
strikes earlier in the day that killed more than 200 Gazans. Full story
