Hamas on Wednesday called on all its cells of activists in the Palestinian territories and Israel to prepare to unleash a "sea of blood" against Israel, the group's armed wing said in a statement.
"We call on all our groups within the 1948 borders to be ready to hit the Zionists at any place and at any time," the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said. It said "students" of the Brigades' leader Salah Shehade, killed in an Israeli air strike late Monday, fired the group's homemade Qassam rockets at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip overnight. Two people were slightly injured in the attacks on the settlements, the Israeli army said.
"This was the first and simple answer in the sea of blood that the Zionists will see because of this crime," the group warned.
For his part, Hamas spokesman Mahmoud al-Zahar, said "Every Israeli, at any time and in any place, is now a target for strikes by the Palestinian resistance." Quoted by Egypt's news agency (MENA), he said "Hamas will not accept any condition for halting the resistance operations to avenge the Palestinian martyrs." Zahar stated Hamas would carry out attacks that would "teach Israel the lesson that it will have to think a thousand times before undertaking such crimes again".
All Palestinian factions have sworn to make Israel pay for the attack, which counted nine children among the dead.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Palestinians pulled the bodies of three children from the rubble in the site of the bombing. Palestinians said the names of the children were on the list of dead from Tuesday, and relatives thought their bodies could not be recovered. Doctors initially thought the children had been blown to pieces, and families buried body parts in coffins under their names in a mass funeral for the 15 victims of the attack on Tuesday.
However, residents of the area sifting through the rubble discovered the bodies of the three on Wednesday, and at first identified them as new victims. The children were all from the Matar famili and were identified as Mohammed, aged four, Ayman, aged 18 months, and Dalia, aged five, AFP reported. Their mother and two other siblings were killed in the strike.
The three were to be buried Wednesday evening. The total toll of the strike was 15 people, including nine children, doctors said. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
