Gaza buries its dead after bloodiest day yet of Israel’s ongoing offensive
- WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
- Four Israeli soldiers wounded in the attack which Israel says target Hamas rocket-launching site
- Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets in northern Gaza warning residents to leave their homes
- Evacuation due to begin today of 800 Palestinians who hold foreign passports, including 300 Americans
- Comes as Israel announced ‘short and temporary’ campaign against northern Gaza to start today
- Demonstrations take place across the world against the latest campaign against the Gaza strip
- Palestinian officials say more than 160 people have been killed so far in the six-day offensive
- Israel says Hamas militants have launched more than 800 rockets into Israel. No Israeli has yet been killed
- Neil Young concert planned for Thursday in Tel Aviv cancelled amid fears of rocket strikes
- Tony Blair meets Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as efforts grow to secure a ceasefire
Palestinians were burying their dead today after the bloodiest 24 hours yet in Israel’s six-day offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Strikes by Israeli warplanes killed 54 people in the narrow coastal territory, according to Palestinian officials, including one overnight attack which killed 18 members of the same family. And this afternoon thousands were fleeing their homes in northern Gaza after a leaflet drop warning of a possible campaign by Israeli forces that could start today. Any move to send ground troops into the densely populated Gaza strip would likely lead to a sharp increase in civilian casualties. So far 166 people have been killed, 30 of them children, officials said.
The father of three-year-old Palestinian child, Mouid al-Araj, carries his son’s body during his funeral in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, today
Palestinian mourners pray over the bodies of 18 members of the Batsh family, after their house was targeted by an Israeli air strike just before midnight last night
Palestinians offer their prayers over the grave of a member of the al-Batsh family who was killed in Saturday night’s Israeli airstrike
The son of one of the Palestinian members of Tayseer Al-Batsh’s family sobs during the funeral today, after they were killed in an Israeli airstrike last night Mass funerals took place today even as Palestinian militants kept up rocket salvoes deep into the Jewish state, and Western foreign ministers who met today said a ceasefire was an urgent priority. It came as Israel escalated its attacks on Hamas-controlled Gaza with an amphibious commando assault early this morning against a suspected rocket-launching site in the north of the territory. Ignoring international appeals for a cease-fire, Israel widened its bombardment of Gaza yesterday. One Israeli warplane hit a home for the disabled, killing two patients and wounding four others. A second strike flattened a home and damaged a nearby mosque during evening prayers, killing 18 members of one family, and wounding 50, according to Palestinian officials.
Blast: An Israeli 155mm artillery unit located next to the Israeli border with Gaza, fires toward targets in the Gaza Strip
This morning Israeli forces dropped leaflets into the town of Beit Lahiya near Gaza’s northern border with Israel. They read: ‘Those who fail to comply with the instructions to leave immediately will endanger their lives and the lives of their families. Beware.’ The Israeli military told the residents of three of Beit Lahiya’s 10 neighbourhoods to get out of the town of 70,000 by midday on Sunday. UN officials said some 4,000 people had fled south to eight UN schools in Gaza City. A senior Israeli military officer, in a telephone briefing with foreign reporters, said Israel would ‘strike with might’ in the Beit Lahiya area from the late evening hours on Sunday. He did not say if this would include an expansion of an air and naval offensive into a ground operation in the north of the narrow, densely populated Mediterranean enclave. ‘The enemy has built rocket infrastructure in-between the houses (in Beit Lahiya),’ the officer said. ‘He wants to trap me into an attack and into hurting civilians.’
Show of might: Israeli soldiers and tanks are seen massing at a staging area near the border with the Gaza Strip today
At schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza City, Beit Lahiya residents arrived in donkey carts filled with children, luggage and mattresses, while others came by car or taxi. One man, still in his pyjamas, said some inhabitants had received phone calls warning them to clear out. ‘What could we do? We had to run in order to save the lives of our children,’ said Salem Abu Halima, 25, a father of two. The Gaza Interior Ministry, in a statement on Hamas radio, dismissed the Israeli warnings as ‘psychological warfare’ and instructed those who left their homes to return and others to stay put. Dozens of houses in parts of Beit Lahiya were levelled by Israeli bulldozers during a month-long Gaza war in late 2008 and early 2009. Israel says such structures provide cover for militants and rocket launchers.
The leaflets marked the first time Israel had warned Palestinians to vacate dwellings in such a wide area. Previous warnings, by telephone or so-called ‘knock-on-the-door’ missiles without explosive warheads, had been directed at individual homes slated for attack. ‘They are sending warning messages,’ resident Mohammad Abu Halemah said. ‘Once we received the message, we felt scared to stay in our homes. We want to leave.’mToday an evacuation is due to begin of 800 Palestinians who hold foreign passports, including about 300 American nationals, said the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories. U.S. citizen Ahmed Mohana said he had mixed feelings about leaving friends and family behind in the troubled Gaza Strip. ‘It is very hard, it is very tough,’ he said. ‘We are leaving our family, our relatives and brothers and sisters in this horrible situation – we have to do what we have to do.’
The militant wing of Hamas, the Islamist political party which controls Gaza, has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, striking the deepest inside the country ever.
The Israeli military said more than 800 rockets had been launched since its offensive began on Tuesday. Israel said it has carried out 1,320 attacks on militant targets, half against what it called rocket launch sites, and the rest at alleged command centres, rocket manufacturing installations, warehouses and smuggling tunnels. Gaza’s Interior Ministry urged residents in the area to ignore Israel’s warnings and to stay in their homes, saying the announcement was Israeli ‘psychological warfare’ and an attempt to create confusion. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuffed international calls for a ceasefire while defending his country’s offensive in Gaza during appearances on U.S. television today. Netanyahu appealed for sympathy for Israelis under siege from militant rockets as a warning siren followed by an all-clear signal punctuated his interview on CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’. ‘When we began this interview we were under bomb alert and as the minutes passed now we’re told people can go out into the open air again,’ he said. ‘This is the kind of reality we’re living in. And we’ll do whatever is necessary to put an end to it.’ Netanyahu urged Americans to imagine that U.S. cities from the East Coast to Colorado, or 80 percent of the population, were under threat of rocket attack, with only 60 to 90 seconds to reach a bomb shelter. ‘That’s what we’re experiencing right now, as we speak,’ he said. In a sign that the conflict might widen, Israel launched attacks across its northern border into Lebanon late last night in response to two rockets fired from there at northern Israel. There were no injuries or damage, but Israel fears Lebanese militant groups such as Hezbollah may try to open a second front.
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