Palestinian Prime Minister of Hamas- led government Ismail Haneya on Wednesday condemned Israel's military escalation, describing Tuesday's airstrike in which three children were killed as a massacre.

Three Palestinian militants from Fatah's armed wing al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades escaped the airstrike when an Israeli plane fired one missile at their car, but three children were killed and 12 others wounded.

Addressing a human rights seminar in Gaza City, Haneya said that the Palestinian people had endured the Israeli occupiers' ugly policies for decades.

Blaming Israel for the unrest and instability in the Middle East, Haneya said that the Israeli occupation had resulted in hostility, hatred and bloodshed.

He added that "the massacre of children" was part of "random killings against our people".

Haneya's remarks came when Israel threatened to carry out a ground operation in the northern Gaza Strip in a bid to prevent militants from launching rockets at southern Israel.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on the factions to refrain from firing rockets in order to avoid an expected Israeli offensive.

Israeli newspapers published pictures of Haneya and seven other senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders on Wednesday, saying the eight would be targeted by the Israeli army if Palestinian militants did not stop firing rockets from Gaza.

Praising Abbas' call for ceasefire, Haneya told reporters that "the problem was with Israeli occupation, which never respect any calm (or truce)."

Source: Xinhua