Turkish Foreign Ministry said Saturday that Turkey strongly condemned Israel over its recent deadly air strikes on the Gaza Strip.

Turkey called on the world not to remain indifferent but to react to Israel's "disproportionate and indiscriminate retaliatory attacks" on Gaza on Friday and Saturday, the ministry said in a statement.

Medics in Gaza told Xinhua Saturday that 14 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli air raids since Friday.

The latest spate of violence started on Friday afternoon, when an Israeli airstrike targeting a car in Gaza City killed Zuhair al- Qaisi, a top leader of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), an umbrella group of armed activists from different Palestinian factions.

The Israeli military said the air strikes were meant to respond to rocket fire at southern Israel from Gaza militants.

The strikes, reportedly to be the deadliest tit-for-tat attacks by Israel on Gaza in months, have triggered a barrage of rockets from the Gaza militants.

Since the killing of al-Qaisi, Palestinian militants have fired more than 100 rockets, almost doubling the amount of rockets fired in the previous three months, toward south Israel, according to Turkish local media.

Turkish Foreign Ministry said Saturday that the current fighting could spiral out of control and benefit no one, demanding an immediate calm in the strip and urging Israel "once again to end its inhumane and unacceptable policies toward Gaza."

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)