HAMAS leader and member of parliament Mushir al-Masri said on Friday that the group had not agreed on a ceasefire with Israel, despite tentative reports that an agreement had been worked out.
‘There is no ceasefire with Israel at this stage and the resistance still has much to surprise the Israelis with,’ he said. Al-Masri added that the resistance is ‘running the battle wisely’.
‘Israel is looking for a delusional victory through their massacres, killing children, and destroying houses on the heads of their residents,’ al-Masri said.
The Israeli army said on Friday that one of its soldiers had been killed in Gaza earlier in the day, bringing the total number of soldiers dead in the fighting to at least 40 as the Palestinian death toll rose to 838.
Since the beginning of Israel’s land invasion of Gaza, 33 Israeli soldiers have been killed, according to the army. Palestinian militant groups have announced that they have killed several more soldiers, claiming that the Israeli army has not admitted the deaths of a number of its troops.
Meanwhile, at least 41 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip in Israeli shelling from air, land, and sea on Friday. Two Palestinians died in artillery shelling on eastern Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, seven bodies were pulled from rubble in the Shujaiyya area near Gaza City on Friday. The bodies show signs of decay, indicating that the people were likely killed during Israeli forces’ massive shelling and bombing of Shujaiyya last Sunday.
Two more bodies were pulled from the al-Zaytoun neighbourhood of Gaza City. They were identified as Muhammad Yassin Siyam and Rami Muhammad Yassin.
In an initial count, 66 Palestinians were killed during what has been dubbed the ‘Shujaiyya massacre’ on July 20, but several more bodies have been found since then.
Meanwhile, Hamas said it had fired three rockets at Israel’s main airport, a day after US and some European airlines had resumed flights after a two-day suspension.
‘At 11:45am, the Qassam Brigades bombarded Ben Gurion airport with three M75 rockets,’ a statement from Hamas’s armed wing said.
EU and US authorities had ordered all commercial flights suspended after a rocket struck near runways on Tuesday, briefly shutting Israeli air links to the outside world in what Hamas claimed as a victory in the deadly conflict now in its 18th day.
Additionally, the al-Qassam Brigades said they targeted Ashdod with five grad missiles, Tel Aviv with five rockets and an M75 missile, and Ashkelon with five grad missiles.
Fatah’s al-Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for targeting Beersheba and Ashdod with three grad missiles.
