Israeli attacks kill two Palestinians and wound six others

Two Palestinian citizens were killed on Friday afternoon when an Israeli aircraft targeted a civilian vehicle in the west of the Gaza Strip, witnesses and medical sources said.

Several others were wounded by Israeli artillery shelling on the morning of the same day in the east of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

Palestinian medical sources confirmed that Mohamed Al-Fasih, 24, from Gaza City and Usama Al-Hossumi, 29, from Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip were killed by an Israeli airstrike on their car.

Spokesperson of the Palestinian ministry of health Ashraf Al-Qidra said that the two citizens arrived at the hospital torn to pieces.

Israeli media reported Israeli army officials as saying that both citizens were senior members of Al-Nasser Salah Al-Din Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committee and supposedly connected to an increase in rocket attacks over the last two weeks.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian medical sources confirmed that the Israeli artillery shelling in Khan Younis wounded six citizens, including a pregnant woman.

Six other Israeli airstrikes targeted empty areas or training sites of Palestinian resistance during the night. Two of the attacks targeted the headquarters of the Palestinian marine services in the middle of the Gaza Strip, causing much damage in the buildings, but no human causalities.

The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon as saying: “We will chase after, and strike with a heavy hand anyone who hurts or plans to hurt us, as we have done today.”

He warned that Israeli “views Hamas as responsible for anything that happens in the Gaza Strip, and they must not test our patience or resolve.”

MEMO Photographer: Mohammed Asad

[Video below is of the car bombing]