GAZA, Dec. 25 (UPI) -- The Palestinian Popular Resistance Committee Wednesday claimed responsibility for the fatal sniper attack of an Israeli near the Gaza border fence.
The Tuesday shooting of Israeli civilian worker Salah Abu Latyef, 22 was in response to Israel's occupation and the killings of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the group said in a statement reported by Israeli Radio.
Shortly after Latyef was killed, the Israeli army and air force waged a series of strikes on suspected terror targets in Gaza. A 3-year-old Palestinian girl was killed and three Palestinians injured.
Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called the strikes a "war crime against the Palestinian civilians."
"We condemn in the strongest terms this new Israeli war crime against the Palestinian civilians in Gaza Strip which aims to initiate a bloody escalation. We hold the Israeli government fully responsible for the consequences of this new act of aggression against our occupied civilian population. Today the Israeli government proved to the entire world that they have an agenda of war, not for peace and are only interested in committing crimes against our defenseless civilians, " Erekat said in a statement reported by the Palestine News Network.
Erekat is one of the two Palestinian officials appointed to negotiate a peace deal with Israel.
Earlier this week, a bomb exploded inside an Israeli bus that had been evacuated minutes earlier and an Israeli policeman was stabbed in the back while directing traffic near the West Bank settlement of Adam Monday night. Shots were fired Tuesday night at an Israeli army patrol in the West Bank and a man was injured by rocks thrown at an Israeli bus.
