Palestinians sit in a debris-strewn street
after what witnesses said was an Israeli air strike that killed two
children Photograph: SUHAIB SALEM/REUTERS
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The Israeli military says that this morning Tel Aviv was targeted by Hamas rockets and asks Parisians to consider what they would do if rockets flew at the Eiffel Tower:
Ce matin, les habitants de Tel Aviv ont été la cible des roquettes du Hamas. Et si votre ville était bombardée ? pic.twitter.com/6wZZrnFPPO
— Tsahal-IDF (@Tsahal_IDF) July 24, 2014
An hour ago the IDF tweeted
that 13 rockets had been fired out of Gaza Thursday and hit Israeli
territory and seven additional rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome
system.
NBC News reports that Gaza ambulances have come under attack in Shuja'iya:
Ambulances under attack again tdy. Was in one that came under fire in shejaia market. #gaza#israel
— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) July 24, 2014
Israeli hits UN-run shelter for displaced Gazans
The Guardian's Peter Beaumont (@petersbeaumont) has visited a UN-run school sheltering displaced Palestinians that was hit by Israeli shelling – or possibly air strikes – Thursday.
Peter confirms a Gazan ministry of health report saying at least 10 people were killed and many wounded in the attack.
Reuters quotes the director of Beit Hanoun hospital, where wounded people were transported:
The director of a local hospital said various medical centres around Beit Hanoun were receiving the wounded.
"Such a massacre requires more than one hospital to deal with it," said Ayman Hamdan, director of the Beit Hanoun hospital.
More
than 140,000 Palestinians have fled 17 days of fighting between Israel
and Gaza militants, many of them seeking refuge in buildings run by the
U.N. UNWRA agency.
Updated
UN school hit in Gaza - reports
Peter Beaumont is on his way to a United Nations Refugee Agency
school reported to have been hit in an Israeli airstrike or shelling.
Initial reports of more than 10 dead. More details soon.
Israel's finance minister Naftali Bennett has given an unapologetic
interview to Sky News, accusing Hamas of using their own civilians as
human shields, adding that "you fight back - there is now
proportionality when you fight terror."
Asked about growing
support for Hamas in the face of increasing bloodshed in Gaza, he called
supporters of Hamas "immoral", adding:
We
want to live side by side, it's them who are running after us. We
handed them the land and they turned it into a fortress of terror.
Updated
Audrey Landmann, Médecins Sans Frontières
(MSF) medical coordinator in Gaza has told Sky News that the situation
in Gaza is deteriorating rapidly. Medical supplies are stuck at the
border and rescue teams are unable to operate safely in Gaza.
She
said the situation was worsening daily, adding that at the last count
more than 150,000 were now gathered in shelters, many more trying to
find safety in their homes. Some medical supplies had passed over the
border yesterday, but others were stuck, she said.
The hospitals are overstretched because the health system was already fragile..now its putting lot of pressure on the system.
The
main problem is not availability of food and water, the main problem is
the security. There is no way to move safety for humanitaitan aid
workers to provide this help because of the constant shelling.
The Palestinian news agency Ma'an is reporting that Hamas have killed eight Israeli soldiers in northeastern Gaza City.
The
Hamas-affiliated al-Qassam Brigades said on Thursday that they had
killed eight Israeli soldiers in northeastern Gaza City in what was
potentially the deadliest attack on the military since the ground
invasion began last week.
Al-Qassam Brigades said that they
infiltrated into the eastern part of al-Tuffah neighborhood earlier on
Thursday and launched an attack on Israeli soldiers deployed there.
The group claimed to have destroyed an armored personnel carrier with an RPG 29, a rocket-propelled grenade.
An Israeli military spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment.
The Brigades also declared that their fighters clashed with Israeli soldiers in two areas in northern Beit Hanoun.
On Sunday, Hamas fighters killed seven Israeli soldiers in a similar attack on an armed personnel carrier.
Palestinian
resistance groups have engaged the Israeli military in intense clashes
across the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the ground invasion last
week, with the military admitting 32 dead and hundreds of wounded
Earlier today the UN under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, Baroness Amos, described the plight of Gazan civilians who were trapped in increasingly desperate conditions. She told the BBC:
We are extremely concerned with the deteriorating humanitarian situation," she told the BBC.
We
have over 118,000 people now who are sheltering in UN schools. People
are running out of food. Water is also a serious concern.
With about 44% of Gaza not able to be used by Palestinians who are fleeing their homes, the situation is even more dire.
In a joint press conference with Israeli prime minister Benjamin
Netanyahu in Jerusalem this morning foreign secretary Philip Hammond
called for a swift ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Hammond
put the blame for the latest outbreak of fighting firmly on Hamas while
reiterating Britain's support for Israel's right to defend itself. He
said:
Britain has also been very clear
that Israel has the right to defend itself and its citizens but we are
gravely concerned by the ongoing heavy level of civilian casualties. We
want to see a ceasefire quickly agreed.
We welcomed the earlier
ceasefire proposal by Egypt. We are disappointed that Hamas has once
again apparently rejected ceasefire proposals.
Netanyahu
thanked Hammond and said Israel would continue in its attempt to
dismantle Hamas's network of tunnels penetrating into Israeli territory.
He said:
I thank you for keeping your moral focus and your moral clarity. We shall need it in the days ahead.
The Palestinian death toll has now reached 718. It is thought that among those 165 are children.
Netanyahu expressed regret for civilian deaths but said, the responsibility lay with Hamas.
"This use of human shields is extraordinarily cynical, it is grotesque, it's inhuman", he said.
He
condemned a decision by the United Nations Human Rights Council to
launch an inquiry into whether war crimes had been committed during
Israel's latest military offensive. He said:
It is a travesty of justice, it is a travesty of fairness, it is travesty of common sense, it is a travesty of truth.
It
will not prevent us from continuing to defend our people, to protect
them against rocket attacks and to dismantle the vast terror tunnel
network that we have seen that is geared to penetrate our territory.
Our data team have produced this map which shows where residents are
trapped in the village of Khuzaar in Gaza, and places where
International Red Cross ambulances went in yesterday to rescue the
wounded.
A school in Gaza which was sheltering 1500 people has been hit by
Israeli fire, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency
for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
The organisation says it is the third time that a school has been hit by Israeli weapons.
UNRWA
spokesman Chris Gunness said that a Girl’s School in Deir Al Balah,
central Gaza was hit at 7.45am this morning and five people were
injured. He said:
"This is the second
time in three days that an UNRWA school has taken a direct hit from
Israeli shelling and we again condemn this in the strongest possible
terms."
The UNRWA said that the Maghazi Preparatory
Girls School in Central Gaza took a direct hit injuring one girl on
Monday. When UNRWA went to investigate, the area came under fire again
"endangering the life of UNRWA staff members".
He said:
"They
were inside investigating, during a “coordinated window” in which the
Israeli Army said the UN could move freely in a marked vehicle"
"We call on all sides to respect their obligations under international
humanitarian law to protect civilians and refrain from any action that
endangers the lives of humanitarian workers."
Middle East expert at Chatham House Nadim Shehadi has said that Israel is likely to resist a cease fire, in order not to hand a significant political victory to Hamas.
"If
Hamas can achieve any results from the violence and from what they call
the resistance it will be a victory for Hamas and a message that only
violence can achieve results and not negotiation," he said, in an
interview on Sky News.
"That message is too strong and too important to be allowed to pass through."
Asked
if he thought Israel would take notice of public opinion, he said.
"Success in negotiation is the only way forward. If they allow for any
success or result to happen through violence, then they will only get
more violence in the future."
An astonishing photograph from astronaut Alexander Gerst - which
shows explosions and rockets flying over Gaza and Israel - has gone
viral.
The German flight engineer, geophysicist and volcanologist called the it his "saddest photo yet".
Gerst
- who has been orbiting the Earth for 57 days - is spending six months
aboard the International Space Station, 300km above Earth.
In an interview with Sky News this morning British foreign secretary
Philip Hammond has reiterated the view that Israel has a legitimate
right to defend itself but warned that international sympathy was
running out.
On a visit to the region, he told Sky News that his
clear message to Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu was "as the
campaign goes on and civilian casualties mount, western public opinion
is becoming more and more concerned and less sympathetic to Israel".
Hammond said Britain was urging Israel to move towards a cease fire but it "takes two to tango." He said:
We
are appealing to Israel [to consider] their western values and do
everything they can to exercise their legitimately right to self defence
while minimising the damage caused.
He added that
discussions were ongoing with Hamas, but the negotiations did not
involve the UK and "had to be through the channels that Egypt had
created".
Asked about the impact of a UNHCR decision to carry out a war crimes investigation, he said:
I
think that is a clear message as the campaign goes on and civilian
casualties mount, western public opinion is becoming more and more
concerned and less sympathetic to Israel. That is simply a fact.
He added:
It is also the case that the longer the campaign goes on the stronger Hamas becomines politically.
Updated
The leader of Islamist militant group Hamas said yesterday that
there could be no ceasefire to ease the conflict in Gaza unless there
was an end to Israel's blockade.
Khaled Meshaal said Hamas would continue to reject a ceasefire until its conditions were met.
Khaled Meshaal at a news conference in Qatar on Wednesday, said:
We will not accept any initiative that does not lift the blockade on our people and that does not respect their sacrifices.
But
the group would not "close the door" to a humanitarian truce, he said.
"We need the calm for a few hours to evacuate the wounded and assist in
[aid] relief."
Updated
The Red Cross has said that it is struggling to evacuate wounded
civilians in Gaza, with rubble and power lines strewn across roads and
sporadic intense fighting.
UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has arrived in the region where
he held late-night talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in
Ramallah. Abbas meets British foreign secretary Philip Hammond. Photograph: APAimages/REX
He called for an immediate ceasefire, but said that was "not
enough", adding that he would push for a "stable solution" that allows
Palestinians and Israelis to "live in peace together".
Hammond
will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this morning.
Netanyahu is then expected to convene the Knesset for a special briefing
on the military operation in Gaza.
Updated
In other breaking news US airlines have lifted a flight ban to Israel this morning,
The
ban was lifted hours after US Secretary of State John Kerry concluded
talks in Jerusalem and Ramallah and returned to Cairo to continue
pushing regional efforts for a ceasefire.
The US national
aviation agency said: "The FAA has lifted its restrictions on US airline
flights into and out of Israel's Ben Gurion Airport." The FAA imposed a
ban on commercial flights to Israel after a rocket hit a house a mile
away from Tel Aviv airport.
It has warned the situation was
still "very fluid" as the fighting continued in Gaza. European airlines,
including Air France and Lufthansa, have also banned flights. There is
no immediate indication that they will be lifting the ban.
After 17 days of bloodshed in Gaza, the Palestinian death toll has reached 718.
The
Israeli army has said that three more soldiers were killed in combat
inside Gaza on Wednesday, raising the total number of soldiers killed
since the start of a ground operation on July 17 to 32.
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