Abbas condemns new Israel-Palestine tension in Gaza

RAMALLAH, March 15 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned on Friday the fresh tension in the Gaza Strip, saying that it is a serious Israeli escalation against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

His condemnation was made in an official statement published by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA in response to the intensive Israeli airstrikes on the coastal enclave.

The statement said that Abbas has been holding "intensive contacts with all parties concerned to stop the Israeli escalation against the children of our armless people in Gaza."

Abbas called on his rival Islamic Hamas movement, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 and still rules it, to get back to Palestinian unity and be committed to the signed reconciliation understandings and agreements to avoid destructive wars.

On Thursday, two long-range rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip into Tel Aviv in central Israel, causing no harms, and no one claimed responsibility for the two rockets attacks, according to Israeli media reports.

An Israeli army spokesman said earlier on Friday that around 100 targets that belong to militant groups all over the Gaza Strip had been hit by missiles fired from Israeli air forces' warplanes.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza told reporters that four Palestinian civilians were injured in the intensive Israeli airstrikes that were waged on the Gaza Strip overnight.