Israeli forces besieging Gaza Strip have continued targeting the enclave with air and ground attacks claiming more casualties among the Palestinian natives and inflicting more heavy damage.
The Israeli troops resumed, on Friday, the attacks following a three-day precarious cease-fire, killing five Palestinians and wounding some 30 others.
According to Palestinian medical sources, six weeks of ground, sea and air assaults by the powerful Israeli machine have left 1,898 deaths and 9,816 others wounded or maimed in the war-battered enclave. A large number of the casualties were civilians; many babies and children.
Palestinian radio stations reported that the Israeli military aircraft demolished, within a single hour, at dawn today, three mosques in the strip. "The missiles unleashed by the warplanes razed the three mosques to the ground," one radio said.
Up to 63 mosques in Gaza, according to the local awqaf authority, have been destroyed or damaged since flare-up of the hostilities, pitting the heavily-armed Israeli forces against fighters of the Islamic movements, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, positioned in the region.
Also at dawn today, the Israeli warplanes bombed a plot near Rafah and hit Al-Buraij camp shortly after attacking and demolishing a house in Bait Lahia. Simultaneously, Israeli gunboats, constantly cruising off the Gaza shores, targeted the beaches with machine-gun volleys.
In the West Bank, the Palestinian, Nader Idriss, 42, passed away, succumbing to injuries he had sustained in confrontations with the occupation forces in Hebron (Al-Khalil), local radios said.
Another Palestinian, Mohammad Al-Qatari, 20, died in clashes, last night, with the occupation forces in Al-Amaari camp, located close to Ramallah. Scores of others were wounded or suffered from suffocation caused by tear gas hurled by the Israeli troops during last night's violence.
Israel has employed its mighty military forces in the fighting against the Gazans, who have retaliated with recurring missiles attacks targeting Israeli towns and cities. They have also fought back on the ground with anti-amour rockets and used various guerrilla warfare tactics to repel the attackers.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad have tied any conciliation to lifting the crippling siege on Gaza and Israel says it is bent on crippling the offensive military capacity of the factions in Gaza.