RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Monday for European collective recognition of the state of Palestine as a "service to peace and a two-state solution", while Israeli aircraft raided the Gaza Strip for the second time in hours, Palestinian sources said.

In a statement, after receiving in Ramallah, the High Representative of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Miguel Moratinos, Abbas stressed the importance of Europe's role as a major force in the world to save the political process through the collective European recognition of the State of Palestine.

According to the official Palestinian news agency, Abbas briefed the UN official on the latest developments in the Palestinian territories, and the political process reached a "real stalemate, due to the Israeli actions and the American decisions that contradict the resolutions of international legitimacy."

Abbas stressed the importance of the role that the international community can play to preserve the principles of international law and the international legitimacy that underpinned the political process to end the occupation and establish an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital on June 4, 1967.

Meanwhile, Israeli aircraft raided the Gaza Strip for the second time in hours.

Palestinian sources said that Israeli aircraft targeted two raids of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip, without causing any injuries or damage.

The Israeli army said in a statement that it targeted Hamas positions, including a military compound, "in response to the shooting from the Gaza Strip towards Israeli territory earlier in the night."

On Friday evening, an Israeli aircraft bombed a Hamas observation post in eastern Gaza City in response to the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, causing no injuries or damage.

No Palestinian side announced the launch of the shell, which followed the death of a Palestinian boy and the wounding of five others by the Israeli army on the outskirts of the southern Gaza Strip.

Medics said that Fahd Mohammed Walid al-Astal, 16, was wounded by a live bullet in the abdomen east of Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip.

This came despite the announcement of the weekly return marches in Gaza, canceled Friday protests scheduled near the fence with Israel for the third week in a row.

The marches of return said that the cancellation of the protests was due to the Israeli "threat" to target Palestinian demonstrators, and is not linked to any understandings of calm.

This is the first time that the return marches have been canceled for three consecutive weeks, since they began on March 30, 2018, to demand the lifting of the Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip for more than 12 years.

On the other hand, the PLO accused yesterday, Israel tightly control of the city of Jerusalem, and settlement expansion to separate it from its Palestinian surroundings.

In a report, the National Office for the Defense of Land and Resistance of Settlements warned of the danger of the Israeli Ministry of Housing seeking to re-plan the establishment of a new settlement neighborhood on the lands of the abandoned Qalandia airport to expand the settlement of Atarot north of Jerusalem.

The settlement plan includes 11,000 housing units, extending about 600 dunams from the airport and the aerospace factory to the Qalandiya checkpoint, which separates Jerusalem from the West Bank.

He added that the plan includes digging a tunnel under the neighborhood (Kafr Aqab), in order to link the new neighborhood with the settlement blocs east.

According to the report, the Israeli government has begun in the past weeks, building 176 settlement units in the settlement «Nof Zion», which is located on the slopes of Mount Scopus south of Jerusalem.

He added that with the completion of the construction of the settlement, which currently includes 96 units, will become «Nov Zion» to the largest outpost within the Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem, so that it will be expanded to reach 550 housing units.

PLO: Israel controls Jerusalem by settlement expansion.