Gaza Toll Hits 1,060 on Day 21 of Assault, Netanyahu Promises 'Lengthy' Operation
Bloodshed in and around Gaza surged Monday as several children were killed in Israeli strikes on the Strip, hiking the Palestinian death toll from Israel's 21-day operation to 1,060.
It was a bloody start to the three-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr which began on Monday, with international demands for an end to the fighting falling on increasingly deaf ears.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israelis must be ready for a long military campaign in Gaza, after mortar fire from the enclave killed four soldiers in Israel.
And U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said any talks about a truce must involve the disarmament of Hamas.
In the latest Israeli attack, three children were among 10 people killed in Israeli raids across Gaza, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.
Five people, including three children, were killed when a tank shell slammed into a house in the northern town of Jabaliya, said Qudra.
Another person died in a strike on central Gaza, and four more were killed in and around the southern city of Khan Yunis, he added.
Earlier on Monday, exchanges of fire killed eight Palestinian children in a Gaza refugee camp.
The missile that slammed into a public playground in the seafront Shati U.N. refugee camp also killed at least two other people and wounded another 46, many of them also children, the emergency services said.
Local residents told Agence France Presse that several missiles were fired at a tuktuk motorised rickshaw near a children's playground.
"An F16 fired five rockets at a street in Shati camp where children were playing, killing some of them and injuring many more," one told AFP.
Inside Shifa hospital, an AFP correspondent saw the bodies of at least seven children from the blast at the camp, with more bodies being brought in on bloodied stretchers.
They were unloaded and taken directly to the mortuary, he said.
Near the site of the blast, women wailed and men screamed in anguish in scenes of utter confusion and distress.
Shortly before the blast, another missile hit a building inside the Shifa hospital compound, causing damage but no injuries, medics and an AFP correspondent said.
An AFP correspondent at the scene said a wall of a building inside the compound was damaged by a missile apparently fired by a drone.
But the Israeli army denied they had fired on Shati camp or Shifa hospital.
"We have not fired on the hospital or on Shati refugee camp," Major Arye Shalicar told AFP.
"We know that Hamas was firing from both areas and the missiles struck these places," he said, adding that since the violence began on July 8, around 200 missiles fired at Israel had fallen short and landed inside the Gaza Strip.
Asked about witness reports of a drone strike, he categorically denied it.
"That's a lie. We have drones there but they are only for surveillance," he told AFP, saying they were not equipped to fire missiles.
Also, five militants from the Gaza Strip were shot dead in a gun battle with Israel troops in southern Israel on Monday, a security source told AFP.
The clash occurred just outside kibbutz Nahal Oz, the source said.
Nahal Oz lies very close to kibbutz Beeri where four civilians were killed by a mortar shell fired from Gaza.
Earlier in the day, a four-year-old child was also one of two people killed by Israeli tank fire in Gaza on Monday, medics said.
According to al-Qudra, four-year-old Samih Ijneid was killed when a shell hit a house to the east of Jabaliya where clashes had recently erupted between Israeli troops and Hamas militants.
The shelling also killed a second person in the same area, he said.
The deadly shelling came as both sides observed an unofficial lull in the fighting as Muslims began marking the first day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday.
Earlier on Monday, another three people succumbed to their injuries, Qudra said.
The Israeli army also sent messages to thousands of Palestinians living near Gaza City to flee.
On the Israeli front, four soldiers were killed when a mortar shell fired from Gaza struck southern Israel on Monday, the army said.
Media reports had initially identified the four as civilians.
The shell hit the Eshkol regional council which flanks Gaza's southern border with Israel.
Army radio said at least 12 other people had been wounded in the strike which hit close to Beeri kibbutz, some six kilometers (four miles) from the border, in an area close to Gaza City.
Hamas claimed responsibility early on for the shellfire.
"The Zionist enemy acknowledges that four of its soldiers were killed and 10 wounded in a Qassam shelling in Eshkol," said a statement from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas.
Despite international truce efforts amid the bloodshed, Netanyahu said Monday Israelis must be ready for a long military campaign in Gaza, after mortar fire from the enclave killed four soldiers in Israel.
"We must be prepared for a lengthy campaign," Netanyahu said in a speech broadcast live, soon after the news of the shelling of the Eshkol region that also reportedly wounded at least 12 people.
"Israeli citizens cannot live with the threat from rockets and from death tunnels -- death from above and from below," he said.
"We will not end this operation without neutralizing the tunnels whose sole purpose is killing our citizens," he said, referring to a sophisticated network of cross-border tunnels used by militants to infiltrate southern Israel.
Dealing with the tunnels was the "first and essential step in demilitarizing the Gaza Strip," which along with disarming militants must be part of "any solution, and the international community must insist on it," Netanyahu said.
The Israeli premier also demanded the international community supervise and monitor construction materials entering the Gaza Strip, which he said were used to construct tunnels.
Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon also spoke of a lengthy campaign saying it could take "many more days until the quiet is restored."
And military Chief of Staff Benny Gantz reiterated a warning to civilians in Gaza to stay away from Hamas.
"Gaza residents should distance themselves from areas in which Hamas is acting because we will get there and it will be painful," he said, shortly after the army sent messages to residents living near Gaza City to flee their homes.
"A short while ago, phonecalls were made and text messages were sent out to the civilian population of Shejaiya, Zeitun and eastern Jabaliya calling them to evacuate immediately towards central Gaza City," an army statement said, referring to areas north, south and east of Gaza City.
Shortly afterwards it said it had also sent similar messages to the civilian population of Jabaliya, Beit Hanun and Beit Lahiya in the north.
Meanwhile, Kerry said also on Monday that international efforts to agree a truce between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza must lead to the disarmament of Hamas.
Kerry, who arrived back in Washington late Sunday after a week-long mission in the Middle East to try to stop the fighting, told reporters he was continuing to work "toward establishing an unconditional humanitarian ceasefire."
Such a truce "could honor Eid which begins now and that will stop the fighting, allow desperately needed food and medicine and other supplies into Gaza and enable Israel to address the threat which we fully understand and which is real, the threat posed by tunnel attacks."
"We believe the momentum generated by a humanitarian ceasefire is the best way to be able to begin to negotiate and find out if you can put in place a sustainable ceasefire on that addresses all of the concerns," the top U.S. diplomat insisted.
But he added: "We also believe that any process to resolve the crisis in Gaza in a lasting and meaningful way must lead to the disarmament of Hamas and all terrorist groups."
"Regrettably, there were misunderstandings about 12 hours versus 24 hours" which blighted his efforts last week to extend a short 12-hour ceasefire, Kerry said.
"So we are trying to work hard to see if these issues can be clarified in a way that allows Israel and the Palestinian Authority and factions, the other countries involved, working through the Egyptian initiative, to be able to find a way to silence the weapons long enough to be able to begin to negotiate."
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, meanwhile, urged Israel and Hamas to stop the violence in Gaza, stressing they must "honor" world appeals for a ceasefire.
Ban spoke a few hours after the U..N. Security Council called for an immediate and unconditional humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza during the Eid al-Fitr holiday.
"In the name of humanity, the violence must stop," Ban told reporters.
The U.N. chief said he had "long talks" with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, urging him to "stop the violence and to honor the international community's joint common effort and common call for a humanitarian ceasefire."
The suspension of fighting should be prolonged for an extra 24 hours to allow urgent deliveries of aid to civilians trapped in the fighting, said Ban who returned at the weekend from a regional tour to push for a ceasefire.
Ban has repeatedly called for a humanitarian truce over the past days, but he noted that "since Sunday a relative and very fragile calm on the ground has been established."
Ban said an Israeli attack on a U.N.-run school in Gaza that left 15 Palestinians dead last week should be investigated and that those responsible face justice.
Palestinian and Israeli leaders "have to show humanity as leaders" and stop the violence as a first step toward peace talks, he added, stressing that it was a "matter of their political will."
The United Nations is backing a bid by Egypt to broker a peace deal to end the latest flareup in the Gaza Strip that has left more than 1,000 Palestinians and 43 Israeli soldiers dead.
The death toll raises "serious issues of proportionality", said Ban. Israel and "all the parties" must do "vastly more" to protect civilians, he added.
The Palestinian envoy expressed disappointment with the statement issued by the U.N. Security Council and called for a full-scale resolution calling for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Jordan has been circulating a draft resolution with such wording but diplomats do not expect the measure to come up for a vote in the near future.
More than 6,200 Palestinians have been injured in the ongoing violence which began with an intensive air campaign on July 8 and expanded when Israel sent ground troops into the Gaza periphery on July 17.
Figures released Sunday by the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA give a figure of 999 dead, including at least 760 civilians, among them 226 children.
Of the 6,233 injured, 1,949 were children, it said.
OCHA also said 215,000 Palestinians had been internally displaced by the ongoing fighting, with the U.N. agency for refugees saying 170,461 of them had taken refuge in 82 of its shelters. The rest were staying with relatives or friends.
The conflict has also cost the lives of 47 Israeli soldiers, all of whom were killed since the ground operation began, as well as two civilians and a Thai agricultural worker who were killed by rocket fire.
Since Israel began Operation Protective Edge on July 8, the army says it has attacked 3,870 targets in Gaza, and militants have fired approximately 2,000 rockets which hit Israel, with around 500 shot down by its missile defense system, Iron Dome.
Since midnight (2100 GMT), only one rocket has struck Israel, hitting the southern city of Ashkelon without causing injury or damage, a military spokeswoman said.
Source: Agence France Presse
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://naharnet.com/stories/en/140862 |