The situation in the Gaza Strip after the recent escalation between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militants remains very unstable, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov said in a Security Council meeting on Wednesday
UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th November, 2019) The situation in the Gaza Strip after the recent escalation between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militants remains very unstable, UN Special Coordinator for the middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov said in a Security Council meeting on Wednesday."We meet today in the aftermath of the most serious recent escalation between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza. Although the immediate crisis was diffused, the situation remains highly volatile," Mladenov said.
Mladenov said that although the ceasefire arrangements, facilitated by Egypt and the United Nations, have been holding since Thursday, the danger of another flare-up is still persistent with sporadic launchings of rockets, prompting Israeli retaliation.
Mladenov said that Palestinian militants launched more than 500 rockets towards Israel in response to the killing of PIJ Commander Bahaha Abu al-Ata in Gaza on November 12. The rockets that were not intercepted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) injured 78 people.
The IDF, responding to these rockets attacks, conducted a number of strikes that killed 34 Palestinians, including three women and eight children, Mladenov said.
In one of such attacks on November 13, the Israeli army said it had mistakenly targeted a building in Gaza, where a family of eight members was sleeping. All of them died in the strike.
Mladenov referred to the incident as "heinous" and called for a thorough and impartial probe into the attack.
