17 Palestinians martyred in Gaza

Zionist regime's forces murdered 17 Palestinians including Husam Zahhar, the son of senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahhar, while shelling the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City Tuesday, witnesses and medics said.

At least 45 Palestinians wounded in this attack.

Mahmoud Zahhar is one of Hamas' founders and served as Palestinian foreign minister from 2006 to 2007. In September 2003, Zahhar's other son Khaled was martyred in an Israeli airstrike that completely destroyed Zahhar's home in Zeitoun.

"What happened today is a massacre, a slaughter against the Palestinian people," PA President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

"Our people cannot keep silent over these massacres. These massacres cannot bring peace."

Among the martyres were 10 members of Hamas Movement armed wing.

Mahmud Zahar vowed the Palestinians would answer Israel in the only language that it knows.

He also noted that Tuesday blood spill was an immediate result of the visit of the US President George W. Bush to the 1948 occupied areas of Palestine.