UN envoy meets Hamas leaders in Gaza

UN Envoy to the Middle East Nicolai Mladinov met Islamic Hamas movement's leaders in Gaza on Friday to help defuse growing tension with Israel, the media reported.

Mladinov arrived in Gaza from Israel and met the leadership of the movement in the Gaza Strip, which Hamas has been ruling since 2007, Xinhua news agency reported citing sources.

Overnight and early on Thursday, Israeli war planes attacked several facilities and posts in eastern and southern Gaza Strip in response to two rockets attacks carried out by anonymous militants. No one claimed responsibility for the attacks, the report said.

Mladinov visited Gaza on Friday, when the Palestinians join the weekly anti-Israel rallies, better known as the Great March of Return and Breaking the Israeli Siege, which has been going on since the end of March last year.

The Highest Commission of the Great March of Return called on the Gaza Strip's populations to join the weekly protests to reject the Israeli plans to annex large parts of the West Bank.

Since the rallies started in 2018, medics said that the Israeli Army killed over 300 demonstrators and wounded more than 17,000 others by live ammunition.

--IANS

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