GAZA/JERUSALEM, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Two Palestinians were killed by an Israeli drone strike on Saturday in northern Gaza, according to Gaza's Civil Defense.
Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Civil Defense, told Xinhua that the strike targeted a group of people near the Atatra area, west of Beit Lahia.
Basal added that Suhail Dahman, a Civil Defense officer, died Saturday of his wounds sustained in a Friday Israeli attack as he was heading back home in Beit Lahia.
This has brought the death toll of Civil Defense personnel since October 2023 to 142, Basal said, accusing Israel of continuously violating the ceasefire taking effect on Oct. 10.
Meanwhile, local sources and eyewitnesses reported Saturday Israeli raids and artillery shelling in the Shuja'iyya, Tuffah and Zeitoun neighborhoods, east of Gaza City.
Separately, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that its forces identified in northern Gaza several "terrorists" crossing the "Yellow Line," which designates areas under Israeli control in Gaza, and killed three of them.
Also on Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a phone call with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, said the Palestinian leadership seeks to establish a modern, unarmed, and democratic state, with stopping the war and bloodshed in Gaza as the current priority.
According to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, Abbas said Palestine welcomes the U.S.-backed peace plan and UN Security Council Resolution 2803, adding that the next step must be implementing the second phase of the plan, which entails the handover of weapons by Hamas and other factions to the Palestinian state, and Israel's complete withdrawal from Gaza.
Settler violence, settlement expansion and annexation policies, withholding Palestinian tax revenues, and other actions undermining the two-state solution should be halted in the West Bank as well, Abbas said.
According to data released Saturday by Gaza's health authorities, 367 Palestinians have been killed and 953 others injured by Israeli attacks since Oct. 11, bringing the overall death toll from Israeli attacks since Oct. 7, 2023, to 70,354, with 171,030 others injured.
Meanwhile, more than 950 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since Oct. 7, 2023, most of them during raids or clashes with Israeli forces, according to Palestinian figures. ■
