Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah on May 5, 2019. (Xinhua/Khaled Omar)
Israeli warplanes, drones and tanks intensified on Sunday their heavy strikes on military posts and facilities that belong to Islamic Hamas movement and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip.
An Israeli army spokesman said in a press statement that striking on military facilities that belong to the two groups was in response to firing scores of rockets from the coastal enclave into Israel.
Gaza Health Ministry said in a press statement that since Saturday, 18 Palestinians were killed, and 146 injured by the shrapnel of missiles and shells of the Israeli army warplanes, drones and artillery.
The statement said that among the killed Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, two are pregnant women and two are unborn fetuses. Meanwhile, security sources said that the other 14 killed are militants; ten of them are Islamic Jihad militants.
Tension has been mounting in the Gaza Strip since Friday, when four Palestinians were killed, including two demonstrators and two Hamas militants after unknown gunmen opened fire and wounded two Israeli soldiers.
The Hamas-run Ministry of Interior said in a press statement that it has instructed to evacuate all the police and security buildings and facilities and temporarily released all the prisoners in fear of being targeted by the Israeli airstrikes.
The decision was made after Israeli warplanes struck with heavy missiles the main headquarters of the interior security services that belong to the interior ministry in western Gaza city, where it was completely destroyed.
Eyad al-Bozzom, spokesman of the ministry of interior in Gaza, said in a press statement that "striking on the interior security headquarters in Gaza is a crime and will never prevent us from carrying out our duties and protecting our people."
Efforts to restore calm between Israel and Gaza militant groups had so far failed, although two senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad delegations have been holding talks in Cairo since Thursday on restoring calm in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had earlier said at the inauguration of two governmental establishments that a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip "has no value and it is useless."
"To those who are ruling the Gaza Strip (referring to Hamas) must understand that a truce here or a calm understanding there are with no values and are useless," said Abbas, according to the official Palestinian News Agency (WAFA).
However, he said that the current violent Israeli escalation on the Gaza Strip "is rejected and condemned," adding "we had asked the world's intervention to immediately stop the Israeli aggression."
Abbas reiterated that it is necessary "to achieve a national and historic reconciliation that includes all the Palestinian people to confront all conspiracies that are plotted against our cause, mainly the American Deal of the Century."
In the West Bank city of Ramallah, dozens of Palestinians demonstrated in support for the Gaza Strip and to condemn the ongoing Israeli military offensive that had been waged on the Gaza Strip on Saturday.
The demonstrators waved Palestinian flags, chanted slogans against Israel and called on the United Nations to ensure protection for the Gaza Strip, home to two million Palestinians.
Essam Bakker, the coordinator of the Palestinian factions, said that the demonstration was organized "to affirm the unity of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip as well as all over the world."
"The current Israeli military escalation against our people in the Gaza Strip will never succeed to achieve the goals of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu," he said, adding "the Palestinian blood is precious."
