Gaza death toll rises to 172 as Israel steps up attack

Gaza: Israel kept up air strikes and artillery fire on the Gaza Strip on Monday despite diplomatic efforts to halt the bloodshed, as its offensive entered the seventh day. [caption id=“attachment_1617763” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The death toll in Gaza rose to 172 as Israel intensified its attack against the Hamas. AP[/caption] Aircraft struck three training facilities of Hamas’s military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, around the coastal territory, but caused no casualties, medics and eyewitnesses said. They also hit buildings in Gaza, Deir el-Balah in the southern part of the strip, and in the northern town of Jabaliya, injuring an unspecified number of people. There was shelling reported in Beit Lahiya, in the far north of the strip, where Israel had earlier warned residents of an impending assault. Israel also moved against Hamas in the occupied West Bank, arresting at least five of the movement’s lawmakers in Nablus and Jenin, Palestinian security officials told AFP. UN chief Ban Ki-moon said “too many” Palestinian civilians have been killed, as the Palestinian death toll from the punishing Israeli campaign hit 172 with another 1,230 people wounded. Ban also urged Israel to scrap plans for a potentially devastating ground offensive, fears of which have sent Gazans fleeing from the north. Israeli media reported that a security cabinet meeting ended late Sunday with no orders for a ground assault. Israeli army radio quoted security sources “at the most senior level” as saying that there were “four channels for attempts to reach a ceasefire: Qatar, the Palestinian Authority, the Americans and the Egyptians.” “According to those sources the Egyptian channel is the strongest, the most significant and the one that draws together all those channels of mediation,” the station’s military affairs reporter said. But despite increasing calls for a ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military was hitting Hamas “with growing force”, warning there was no end in sight. “We do not know when this operation will end,” he told ministers. US Secretary of State John Kerry phoned Netanyahu to renew a US offer to help mediate a truce and he “highlighted the US concern about escalating tensions on the ground,” a senior State Department official said. Kerry also said that he was engaged with regional leaders “to help to stop the rocket fire so calm can be restored and civilian casualties prevented”. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said he would ask Ban to “put the State of Palestine under the UN international protection system” in order to address the violence in Gaza. As the death toll rose, the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said most of the victims were civilians, putting their number at more than 130, among them 35 children and 26 women. So far, no Israelis have been killed, although militants in Gaza have pounded the south and centre of the country with about 715 rockets since the fighting began on 8 July, an army spokeswoman told AFP late Sunday. Around 160 had been intercepted, she said. For the first time during the Israeli operation, a rocket fired from Syria hit the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan heights but landed on empty ground, causing no casualties. Israel responded with artillery fire at Syrian army positions, the Israeli military said. Four rockets fired from southern Lebanon struck northern Israel early Monday, Lebanese security sources said. No casualties were reported in Israel and the army responded with artillery fire. An AFP correspondent in southern Lebanon reported more than 30 shells were fired, but there was no information yet on casualties. On Sunday, Israeli naval commandos staged a brief ground assault in northern Gaza on a mission to destroy longer-range rockets, with the army warning residents to leave the area ahead of a major assault on the sector. Hamas told Gazans to ignore the Israeli warnings. In northern Gaza, even before the army’s warnings went out, thousands of residents of the blockaded coastal strip began fleeing the traumatic violence, an AFP correspondent reported. About 17,000 people have taken shelter in installations of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, the agency said in a statement. Saturday’s death toll was the highest yet with 56 people killed, including 18 people who died in a single strike on a house in Gaza City, medics said. Eight people were killed in air strikes on Sunday and another two died early Monday of injuries received in earlier raids. Pope Francis appealed to world leaders for both prayer and diplomacy to halt the bloodshed, while the German and Italian foreign ministers were both poised to head to the region to join truce efforts, their offices said. With Palestinian civilians bearing the brunt of the violence, clashes erupted in central Paris as thousands of people protested against Israel and in support of Gazans. Protesters also rallied across Asia to condemn the Israeli offensive, with 3,000 gathering in Sydney and hundreds more in Hong Kong, New Delhi and Jakarta. Israel has warned that preparations are under way for a possible ground incursion. But Israeli media said that a meeting of Netanyahu’s security cabinet ended Sunday night without giving the order for ground operations. The latest escalation began on 12 June when three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and murdered, triggering a crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank and an uptick of rocket fire from Gaza, which worsened after a Palestinian teen was killed by Jewish extremists on 2 July. AFP