The latest attack comes almost a week after the occupation launched air strikes on the Palestinian city.
Qatar has condemned the latest Israeli aggression on the besieged Gaza strip on Tuesday, where at least 13 Palestinians were killed, including women and children.
In a statement released hours after the attack, Qatar’s foreign ministry slammed the Israeli assaults on Gaza as another “episode” of the occupation’s crimes against Palestinians.
“The State of Qatar condemns in the strongest terms the brutal Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, considering it a new episode in the series of horrific occupation crimes against the defenceless Palestinian people, especially women and children,” the statement read.
The Gulf state also renewed its warnings over the “fading chances for peace and widening the cycle of violence due to the provocative Israeli escalation in the occupied Palestinian territories.”
“The ministry stresses the need for the international community to move urgently to provide the necessary protection for the Palestinian people and to compel Israel to stop its flagrant violations of international law to respect international legitimacy resolutions,” the statement added.
Israel carried out new attacks on Gaza before the break of dawn on Tuesday targeting members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement (PIJ), almost a week after the occupation launched air strikes on the Palestinian city.
A ceasefire brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations ended the previous aggression.
Tor Wennesland, the UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said that three members of a PIJ, a doctor, five women and four children, were among the Palestinians killed during the latest violence.
Wennesland urged “all those concerned to exercise maximum restraint and avoid an escalation. I remain fully engaged with all sides in an attempt to avoid a broader conflict with devastating consequences for all.”
Israeli forces codenamed the latest attacks as “Operation Shield and Arrow” and said it targeted the three PIJ members it claimed were behind rocket attacks on Tel Aviv.
The three PIJ members killed have been identified as Jihad al-Ghannam, Khalil al-Bahtini and Tariq Izz al-Deen.
Commenting on the killing of the PIJ members, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh warned that “assassinating the leadership in a treacherous operation will not bring security to the occupier, but instead greater resistance”.
Khader Adnan’s death in Israeli prison
Last week’s flare up came after groups from Gaza launched rockets towards Israel in response to the death of prominent Palestinian hunger striker Khader Adnan.
The late prisoner, who was a key political leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad faction, went on an 87-day hunger strike while awaiting trial.
Adnan, a father of nine, was the first Palestinian hunger striker to die in Israeli prison in more than 30 years, per a Reuters report.
Palestinian prisoners are known to go on hunger strikes to protest against unlawful detention by Israel, in what has become widely known as “the battle of empty stomachs”.
Israeli authorities had stopped Adnan’s family from visiting him in prison and denied him medical attention. Palestinian officials have described his death as an “assassination”.
Meanwhile, Palestinians who took to the streets in the occupied West Bank to protest Adnan’s death were met with violence from Israeli forces attempting to disperse the demonstrators.
According to the Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Addameer, there are 1,016 administrative detainees behind bars and 160 child prisoners.
Since 2007, Israel has attempted to isolate Gaza after subjecting it to a blockade that has turned the city into what has been widely described as “the largest open-air prison”.
