Israel ups military attacks on Gaza

Israel has stepped up its armed offensives on the Gaza Strip over the recent months, leaving many Palestinians dead and injured.

On Sunday, Israeli forces launched another attack into the besieged enclave, killing two Palestinians in the east of the southern city of Khan Younis, AFP reported.

Tel Aviv has confirmed killing the pair in an airstrike. An Israeli army spokeswoman said the military’s gunships had backed up gunfire by the forces.

The victims were reportedly members of the Islamic Jihad movement of Palestine, identified as Mahmud al-Najjar and his comrade Musaab Abu Rock, the agency added.

Thousands of mourners gathered subsequently in the Gaza Strip to attend a related funeral ceremony.

Separately, Israeli troops shot a fisherman in the northern Gaza, the Palestinian Ma’an news agency reported. Medics say the man has sustained bullet wounds in both feet.

The latest attacks come only days after Israeli forces killed a shepherd collecting gravel near a Tel Aviv-imposed so-called buffer zone.

Earlier in the month, at least five people were killed by an Israeli aerial assault on the town of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

The attack marked one of the deadliest carried out by the Israeli military since Tel Aviv’s December 2008-January 2009 war on the Gaza Strip, which killed more than 1,400 and inflicted heavy damages, estimated to be as high as USD 1.6 billion, on the enclave’s economy.

The Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas has warned that any fresh Israeli aggression will face the strongest response.