Gaza death toll hits 800 on 18th day of Israeli attacks

Fifteen Palestinians were killed Thursday when an Israeli shell slammed into a UN shelter where hundreds of civilians had taken refuge.

 

And fresh Israeli fire early Friday pushed the overall Palestinian death toll in Gaza to at least 800 despite world efforts to broker a ceasefire.

 

The Thursday strike hit a UN school sheltering some of the 100,000 Palestinians driven from their homes in search of a safe haven after weeks of deadly fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas.

 

The shell crashed down in the middle of the courtyard where people had set up camp, leaving the ground covered in bloodstains.

 

Gaza´s emergency services said at least 15 people had been killed and more than 200 wounded.

 

UN chief Ban Ki-Moon said: "Many have been killed -- including women and children, as well as UN staff."

 

He said he was "appalled" by the news and "strongly condemned" the attack which he said "underscores the imperative for the killing to stop -- and to stop now".

 

Washington said it was "deeply saddened and concerned about the tragic incident", without explicitly blaming its ally Israel for the shelling.

 

"We again urge all parties to redouble their efforts to protect civilians," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in Cairo, where Secretary of State John Kerry is trying to negotiate a ceasefire.

 

Early Friday morning a shell hit a home in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis, killing at least one person and sending the Palestinian death toll from 18 days of fighting to 800. 

Gaza toll hits 572 on day 14 of Israeli operation

The death toll in Gaza rose to 572 on Monday following the bloodiest day in the Palestinian enclave since 2009 where Israel is pressing a punishing military operation.

 

And the Israeli army said another seven soldiers had been killed in fighting in Gaza, raising the overall Israeli death toll to 27, all but two of them soldiers.

 

The announcement came a day after 13 soldiers were killed, making Sunday the highest one-day death toll sustained by the Israeli army since the 2006 Lebanon war.

 

Gaza emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said air strikes and shelling killed 55 people across the enclave on Monday, and another 68 bodies were pulled from the rubble in areas hit by heavy fighting a day earlier.

 

The army also said its troops had killed "more than 10 militants" who had infiltrated southern Israel through two tunnels, sparking a firefight that reportedly wounded several soldiers.

 

Militants killed inside Israel are not included in Qudra´s Gaza toll.

 

The latest deaths included six people killed in two artillery strikes, three of whom died in the southern city of Rafah and another three in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

 

Of the 55 people killed on Monday, around a third of them were children, Qudra said.

 

Seven children were among nine dead in an air raid on a house in Rafah, and another four children were killed in another strike on a house in Gaza City that killed nine people.

 

A nighttime air strike on a residential tower block in Gaza City killed 11 people, including five children, Qudra said, and a simultaneous strike in the central Strip killed another.

 

And Israeli tank shells slammed into a hospital in Deir al-Balah, killing four people, among them doctors, Qudra said, indicating at least 70 people were wounded.

 

Another 32 people were killed in a series of air strikes and tank shelling across the strip.

 

Of the 68 bodies recovered on Monday, 13 were from Shejaiya, hiking the death toll from a blistering Sunday attack to 74.

 

Qudra said the vast majority were women, children and the elderly.

 

Another 23 of the bodies were pulled from a three-storey house belonging to the Abu Jamaa family in the southern city of Khan Yunis which was hit on Sunday, raising the overall death toll from a single strike to 28, Qudra said.

 

So far, Palestinian figures show 572 Gazans have been killed and more than 3,350 wounded since the start of the Israeli campaign on July 8. 

Israel air strikes kill 7 in Gaza: Medics

A series of Israeli air strikes early Tuesday killed seven people in Gaza, including five members of the same family, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.

 

The deaths hike the total Palestinian toll to 583 since the Israeli military launched Operation Protective Edge on July 8 in a bid to stamp out rocket fire from Gaza.

 

Qudra said a strike on Deir el-Balah in central Gaza killed five family members, four of them women.

 

Another person was killed in a strike in nearby Nusseirat, and one more died in the southern city of Khan Yunis. Many of those killed in the relentless Israeli campaign of shelling and airstrikes in the Gaza Strip have been women and children, medics say. On the Israeli side, 27 soldiers and two civilians have been killed. World powers have urged Hamas to accept an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire and stop raining rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip, demands it has so far resisted.

Israel shells Gaza hospital killing five, injuring 70

Israel shelled a hospital in the central Gaza Strip on Monday, killing five people and wounding at least 70, medics said.

 

Emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said the 70 injured included at least 20 hospital staff, among them doctors.

 

He said the third floor of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah had been hit, with an interior ministry official saying it was hit by Israeli tank fire.

 

Palestinian television showed footage of wounded people, including medical staff, being treated after the bombing.

 

Gaza Palestinians toll 258, as 6 more killed: Medics

Six Palestinians were killed Today in two separate attacks in Gaza, medics said as Israel launched a ground offensive in an operation to stamp out militant rocket fire.

 

Emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said four family members were killed in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, with another two killed in the northern town Beit Hanoun, raising the number of Gazans killed in the Israeli campaign to 258.

 

Israel agrees Gaza aid truce after children killed on beach

Israel agreed to a UN request to halt its bombardment of Gaza for five hours on humanitarian grounds, after its naval strikes killed four children on a beach Wednesday.

 

The punishing strikes aimed at halting cross-border rocket fire by Hamas militants had resumed after Egyptian-brokered truce efforts collapsed Tuesday.

 

Israel´s campaign, now in its ninth day, has killed 220 Palestinians so far, with a Gaza-based human rights group saying over 80 percent of them were civilians.

 

In the same period, militants have fired more than 1,200 rockets at Israel. They claimed their first Israeli life on Tuesday.

 

Hamas rejected the Egyptian truce efforts, saying it had not been included in the discussions. The Israeli army announced it would halt its bombardment of Gaza between 10:00 am and 3:00 pm (0700 to 1200 GMT) Thursday, following a UN request for a humanitarian truce.

 

UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process Robert Serry earlier told Israel´s Channel Two television, that he had asked the military for a "humanitarian pause" in its Gaza offensive and that, if it agreed, he would ask Gaza militants to follow suit.

 

Hamas said it was considering the request."Hamas has been informed about the UN proposal for a truce of several hours tomorrow," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP.

 

"The proposal is being studied and when a decision has been taken, it will be announced officially in a statement.

"As part of the peace initiative, a Hamas official met Egyptian leaders while Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas arrived in Cairo to join the diplomatic efforts.

 

In addition to the four killed children, several people were also wounded in an apparent Israeli naval bombardment of a beach in Gaza City, medics said.

 

The first strike hit at around 1300 GMT, prompting terrified children and adults on the beach to scatter. A second and third struck as they ran, setting fire to huts on the beach.

 

The strikes appeared to be the result of shelling by the Israeli navy against an area with small shacks used by fishermen.

 

Several children ran inside a hotel where at least three had shrapnel injuries.The four bodies were later taken to Abu Hasira mosque, near where the boys had died.

 

The boys, all from the Bakr family, were laid out, wrapped in the yellow flags of the Fatah party, in front of mourners.

 

Several hours after the strikes, the Israeli military described the deaths as "tragic" and said it was investigating the incident."Based on preliminary results, the target of this strike was Hamas terrorist operatives," the military said in a statement. "The reported civilian casualties from this strike are a tragic outcome."

Isreal to 'expand, intensify' Gaza Campaign : Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged on Tuesday to ramp up Israel´s military campaign against Gaza, after an Egyptian truce plan failed to end eight days of cross-border fire.

 

"This would have been better resolved diplomatically, that´s what we tried to do when we accepted the Egyptian truce proposal today," he said of the conflict which has so far resulted in 194 Palestinian and one Israeli deaths.

 

"But Hamas leaves us no choice but to expand and intensify the campaign against it," Netanyahu said. (AFP)

 

Isreal Strikes Kill 3 Palestinians in Gaza: Medics

Three Palestinians were killed in two Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip on Tuesday night, raising the toll in eight days of violence to 197 deaths, medics said.

 

One strike killed two men in a car in southern Rafah, and a second in central Johr al-Deeq killed one man, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.