Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Saturday for a special United Nations Security Council session to discuss the Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, which followed deadly attacks in southern Israel this week.
The Palestinian representative at the UN had been tasked with this demand, sources in Ramallah told the German Press Agency dpa.
Nabil Shaath, a senior member of Abbas' Fatah party, earlier called the Israeli attacks on Gaza a "war crime."
At least 15 people have been killed and 45 injured, according to Palestinian sources, in the airstrikes on Gaza that began late Thursday, hours after a series of coordinated attacks in southern Israel.
Israel blames Palestinian extremists for the attacks around the city of Eilat, in which eight Israelis were killed and 31 injured.
Palestinian militants also launched more than a dozen rockets towards Israel on Friday. One person was seriously injured when a missile hit the roof of a synagogue in the Israeli city of Ashdod.
The Islamist Hamas movement had declared its ceasefire with Israel to be over, as a result of Israel's counterattacks on the strip, media reported Saturday. No official confirmation was available.
A spokesman of al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Gaza Strip's ruling Hamas, told dpa that Israel would have to "pay for its crimes."
The ceasefire has been broken repeatedly since it was agreed to at the end of the Gaza war, in early 2009.