40 aircraft participated in the strikes

Dead and wounded, including women and children, in Israeli shelling on the Gaza Strip

A Palestinian woman cries during the funeral of one of the victims in Gaza. AFP

13 Palestinians, including women and children, and three military commanders of the Islamic Jihad movement, were killed in a series of Israeli air strikes targeting the Gaza Strip at dawn yesterday, while two Palestinians were killed in the afternoon, in an Israeli targeting of a car in the Khan Younis area in the southern Gaza Strip.

The military operation in Gaza came after a series of security tensions over the past weeks, the latest of which was an escalation between Israel and Islamic Jihad less than a week ago, which ended with a truce after external interventions.

The Ministry of Health in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip announced that 13 people were killed and about 20 others were wounded as a result of the Israeli targeting of the Strip, and the ministry said that there were women and children among the victims, and that among the injured were critical cases.

Israeli military spokesman Richard Hecht said 40 aircraft had taken part in the Israeli strikes, adding: "We achieved what we wanted to achieve."

Among the dead was the chairman of Al-Wafa Hospital, Dr. Jamal Khaswan, who also holds Russian citizenship, and was killed along with his wife and son, the Ministry of Health announced, while the Russian Federation Representation in Palestine expressed regret. Funerals for the dead, attended by thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, took place yesterday afternoon, according to AFP correspondents.

The UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Tor Wennesland, condemned the killing of civilians in Israeli air strikes, saying that "this is unacceptable."

The League of Arab States condemned in the strongest terms the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and the League of Arab States stressed in a statement that this dangerous escalation comes within the framework of the open war waged by the Israeli Government against the Palestinian people, their properties and holy sites.

The Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Jassim Mohammed Al-Budaiwi, condemned the Israeli escalation in the Gaza Strip, expressing his strong condemnation of the acts of violence, which are a flagrant violation carried out by the occupation authorities, calling on the international community to assume its responsibilities to end the Israeli occupation and stop its aggressive practices that would obstruct the paths of political solutions based on the Arab Peace Initiative and undermine international peace efforts.