A handful of storekeepers sat down on little chairs outside their closed stores, watching traffic jams in Gaza City's main street on Sunday, one day after seven consecutive airstrikes carried out by Israeli jets on Hamas bases killed five people and wounded more than 16.

Hamas declared a three-day grief and a one-day general strike to protest the Israeli air-strikes and the killing of the five Hamas militants, members in the Interior Ministry executive force that Hamas controls in the Palestinian coalition.

"It is a general strike; this is why we didn't open our stores today. I hope that this conflict would end and Israel halts its operations against Gaza soon," said Ibrahim Hajaj, a Gaza clothes storekeeper.

The same main street, where Hajaj's store is located, was totally empty of people and traffics two weeks ago after it had witnessed a week of inter-Palestinian fighting between rival Hamas and Fatah movements, leaving more than 50 people killed.

"Israeli strikes on Gaza are much better than inter-Palestinian fighting," Hajaj said as he was watching an F-16 warplane flying over Gaza City.

"When Israel kills Palestinians - Israel still considered as our sole enemy -- we consider our dead people as martyrs, but when a Palestinian kills another Palestinian, what do we consider him a martyr or just a dead one," he added.

Following an increase of homemade rocket attacks on Israel, carried out by different militant groups, mainly Hamas, Israel approved and executed an operation to crackdown on them.

Officials of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Ministry of Health said that 48 Palestinians were killed by Israel over the past 10 days, while another 52 people were killed in Gaza during the last inter-Palestinian fighting.

A money exchange shop next to Hajaj's store and three others in the opposite side were bombed by Israeli air-to-ground rockets during the Israeli offensive. Israel says those exchangers transfer money from abroad to Hamas.

"Our deals and business are domestic, we don't have any relations with foreign sides," said Falah Herzallah, whose store was shelled twice last week.

According to observers' estimation, the densely populated and poor Gaza Strip enclave is witnessing the worst wave of dual violence, the first between Israel and the Palestinian militant groups and the second among Palestinians themselves.

Ahmed Shahin, a 45-year-old academic of Gaza, expected that violence and chaos in Gaza would end only if the international embargo imposed on the Palestinians ends and if a permanent peace agreement is reached.

There have been lots of efforts exerted by President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian mediators to renew ceasefire with Israel, though Gaza factions still determined that Israel should stop its offensive first.

The Egyptian efforts have begun working as Hamas announced Sunday it had accepted an Egyptian invitation for talks. A delegation from Fatah has started talks with the Egyptians Sunday in Cairo and another Hamas delegation is scheduled to arrive there next week.

Political analyst Mukhaimar Abu Sa'da expects that the Egyptian efforts aim at easing tension between the two factions. However, he believes the main goal was to secure a new truce with the Israeli occupation.

"The efforts to reach a truce can succeed because the calmness with Israel is not a new issue and was reached four times ago," Abu Sa'da said.

But he expresses fears that reinforcing understanding between Hamas and Fatah may fail due to "the continuation of tension, lack of confidence and the trade of accusations between the two sides."

The analyst rule out "any real assurances to prevent the fighting from starting again even if Egypt was the sponsor of the Palestinian dialogue."

The people in Gaza keep an eye on the talks and another eye on the Israeli offensive, fearing a new wave of internal violence as Abu al-Abed, 58, fears the Israeli bulldozers to demolish his house in northern Gaza Strip.

No one is paying attention to the tanks that entered into northern Gaza Strip and worked near Abu al-Abed's house in the town of Beit Lahia. It seems everyone has his own concern.

Source: Xinhua