Erekat calls for mutual truce between Israel, Palestinians

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat Monday called for a mutual truce between Israel and the Palestinians as an Israeli operation in the northern Gaza Strip entered the sixth day.

Erekat made the call in an interview with local radio Voice of Palestine, warning of a looming humanitarian disaster if the Israeli operation "Autumn Clouds," the biggest one in four months, continued.

He noted that President Mahmoud Abbas has been contacting with the international community to force Israel to halt its offensive against the strip.

In the latest Israeli airstrike on Monday afternoon, a Hamas militant was killed after being hit directly with a missile fired by an Israeli drone in northeastern Gaza City.

The slain was identified as Mohammed Taha, 30, who was a member of Hamas' military wing al-Qassam Brigades, witnesses said.

The latest casualty brought to 53 the number of Palestinians who have been killed since Israel launched "Autumn Clouds" operation which also wounded more than 250 others.

Earlier in the day, a Palestinian teenager was killed and five others were wounded in an Israeli air strike near Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, medics and witnesses reported.

Another youth from Beit Hanoun also died in the hospital after he was wounded in earlier clashes, medical sources said.

In another raid, four militants in the northeastern Gaza Strip were wounded when an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at a group of militants who were hiding inside an orange grove, witnesses said, adding the wounded were transported to Gaza's Shifa hospital.

Meanwhile, Israeli sources said the army killed two militants in the northeastern Gaza Strip, but the Palestinian sources did not confirm the report.

The ongoing Israeli assaults which started on Nov. 1 are part of an offensive unleashed in June following the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militant groups.

The captors holding the Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit hostage in Gaza had threatened to kill Shalit if the Jewish state kept on striking the Palestinian territories.

Although Israel said the aim of the operation is to stem rocket attacks from the northern Gaza Strip at Israel, the goal seems hard to realize as several Palestinian groups announced they have showered Israeli communities with homemade rockets.

Military wings of Hamas, Islamic Jihad (Holy War) as well as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine fired rockets on Sderot and a number of Israeli army bases in southern Israel.

Source: Xinhua