By Xinhua
Brussels : European Union top diplomat Javier Solana urged on Tuesday parties concerned in the Middle East to stop the cycle of violence.
“The casualties resulting from today’s events in Gaza as well as in a nearby farming community across the border with Israel” and continued firing to Israel were a stark reminder of the urgent need to advance on the path to a negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict set out in Annapolis, he said in a statement posted on the European Council’s website.
“I call on all concerned to exercise restraint and to stop the cycle of violence which will only feed new atrocities and lead to further suffering by the people in the region.”
Two more Palestinian militants were killed on Tuesday evening in an Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, raising the Palestinian death toll to 19 since early hours of Tuesday, reports said.
Meanwhile, militants of al-Qassam brigades, the Islamic Hamas movement’s armed wing, fired on Tuesday evening four homemade Qassam rockets at southern Israeli town of Sderout.