Israel says it killed 2 Palestinian attackers

Breaking the Silence, an Israeli NGO, said that testimonies that it had collected from the Gaza war painted a “troubling picture” of the Israeli army’s policy of “indiscriminate fire”, which, it asserted, had “directly resulted in the deaths of hundreds of innocent Palestinian civilians”.

Israel’s Shin Bet security service was involved, the statement said, indicating the strike was launched on the basis of intelligence information about an imminent Palestinian attack.

The Israeli military says it is looking into Tuesday’s incident.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party, said he was one of its members and vowed revenge.

However, on Wednesday, the Palestinian government responded to Hamas’ offer, saying that its only aim is to continue foot-dragging on the issue, and blaming the movement for failing to hold up its obligations in Gaza and ignoring the suffering of Gazans.

Israeli farmers were instructed not to come near the border fence in light of the possibility of retaliation from the Strip.

On a related matter, an Israeli opposition lawmaker on Monday protested that no security barrier was erected between southern Israeli communities and the Gaza Strip enclave, despite promises by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon to do so.

The military court has been controlled by Hamas since the Islamic movement’s violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007.

In October a pregnant Palestinian mother and her toddler were killed in an Israeli air raid in the Gaza Strip.

Huwaida Arraf, a dual USA and Israeli national, was on board a United States boat named Challenger 1, which was part of the flotilla trying to deliver humanitarian aid in circumvention of Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

Lerner said 18 months ago, more than 2,200 Palestinians and more than 70 Israelis were killed in a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas before a ceasefire.