Israeli occupation forces early Wednesday killed at least 25 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israeli tank shells killed 19 civilians in the Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanun on Wednesday, Palestinian officials said. Locals said shells hit at least seven houses, killing people as they slept.
Seven children and four women were among the victims, said Palestinian Health Ministry spokesman Khaled Rabi. According to Reuters, the ministry said 54 people had been injured.
Also in the Strip, an Israeli sniper on Wednesday killed a 17-year-old Palestinian child in Beit Lahia town, locals reported. They said that Nimir Mohammed Abul Naji was hit with a bullet in the head that killed him instantly.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas declared that Beit Hanun town is "a crisis zone."
In a press conference, the President has the Israeli occupation forces perpetrated today a heinous crime. Earlier, Abbas declared three days of national mourning.
On his part, a senior Hamas official urged Palestinians to carry out attacks inside Israel in response to the Gaza Strip carnage. "The reaction is coming. (Israel) prepare the coffins and black body bags," Nizar Rayan, a Hamas leader told his crowd outside a morgue in Beit Hanoun. "Revenge for the blood of martyrs is coming ... We urge our mujahideen to resume bombing attacks in Jaffa, in Haifa, in Ashdod -- every place in our homeland."
The Islamic Jihad group also vowed to carry out suicide bombings inside Israel.
In the wake of the massacre, the PA premier Ismail Haniyeh announced the suspension of the ongoing inter-Palestinian dialogue over the formation of a unity government in the PA, explaining that the decision does not mean freezing those talks.
Haniyeh's remarks came during an emergency meeting of his cabinet Wednesday where he explained that the suspension of talks on the unity government was made to give Palestinian parties and factions ample time to follow up repercussions of the attack on Beit Hanun.
He called on the UNSC and the UNGA to immediately convene in an extraordinary session over the bloodbath in Beit Hanun.
In an earlier press conference he held Wednesday, Haniyeh said that the Palestinian people were bereaved by Wednesday's massacre in Beit Hanun against Palestinian children and women. "The massacre proves the presence of a Zionist bloodthirsty mentality targeting the destruction of the Palestinian man and land. This massacre wants to force Palestinian people to abandon their national constants; yet, I stress that our people will never compromise its national constants", Haniyeh underlined.
The PA premier, furthermore, called for the formation of an international committee to investigate the Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people, urging the Palestinian people to stand up as one body in confronting the "ugly" IOF troops' aggressions.
The Hamas Movement on Wednesday described the massacre as a "horrendous bloodbath" in which the scattered remains of children and women were mingled with their devastated homes, and vowed not to let the "butchery" pass without the appropriate punishment.
The Movement, in a statement commenting on the massacre, said that it is a new witness to the cycle of "Zionist violence and systematic terrorism" that persisted in reaping Palestinian lives without any moral deterrence.
"The pogrom recalls back to mind the series of Zionist massacres in lines of the Palestinians ever since that entity was established on usurped Palestinian lands and reflects the bloody mentality of that entity that prospers on the shedding of blood and only lives in the darkness of hatred and never nourishes peace," the statement elaborated.
It said that the brutal carnage aimed at breaking the Palestinian people's determination to achieve "cheap" military and political goals, "which we believe would never be materialized".
The Movement asked all Palestinian resistance forces to unite, cement ranks and expedite retaliation to the "Zionist criminality", and urged PA security elements to join the resistance factions in defending the Palestinian people.
West Bank
In the West Bank, Israeli troops killed four Palestinians near the West Bank town of Jenin, Palestinian security officials said.
Four local activists of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades were walking in the streets of Kfar Yamoun in the early morning when Israeli troops opened fire, the security officials said. The occupation troops and the Palestinian fighters exchanged fire, and the men fled into a nearby olive grove, where other soldiers shot them dead, they said.
After this incident, a 30-year-old civilian had climbed to his a rooftop to observe the clashes and he was also shot and killed, security and medical officials said.
In the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli tank fire on Wednesday struck houses, killing 12 Palestinians, Palestinian medical sources said. They said the victims included women and children but had no exact figures.
Earlier Wednesday, an Israeli air strike destroyed the house of a leading Hamas activist in Gaza City, Hamas and security sources said. At least 12 people were killed in this attack.
The Gaza air strike targeted the home of Ahmed al-Jabari, second in command of Hamas' military wing.
