NOVANEWS
Updated at 5:35 pm: Israel pressed on with an intensive aerial offensive in Gaza for a third day on Thursday, raising the death toll to 83, Palestinian officials said, as Israel indicated a ceasefire was “not on the agenda.”
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the deadliest single bombing raid since the start of the offensive which killed eight members of a family including five children in a predawn strike. The attack destroyed at least two homes in Khan Younis in southern Gaza while residents were asleep, killing the eight people, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
At least 83 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the Israeli military operation on Tuesday, more than 60 of them civilians, Palestinian health ministry sources said. The ministry of health added that 537 Palestinians have been injured in Israeli attacks since the Tuesday.
Al-Akhbar is compiling a list of names of the casualties from the three-day conflict, which can be viewed here.
No Israelis have been killed since the beginning of military operation “Protective Edge.”
Across the Gaza Strip, plumes of smoke and rubble marked the aftermath of Israeli attacks.
“The Jews say they are fighting Hamas and fighting gunmen while all the bodies we have seen on television are those of women and children,” Khaled Ali, 45, a Gaza taxi driver, told Reuters.
The bloodshed is likely to continue unabated, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Knesset members on Thursday that a ceasefire was not in the plans.
“I am not talking to anybody about a cease-fire right now,” Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted Netanyahu as saying. “It’s not even on the agenda.”
Israel says its offensive is intended to halt rocket fire at its cities from the Gaza Strip. More than 200 rockets have been fired during the campaign, it said.
The rockets have caused no serious casualties. The Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted some of the rockets, while others slammed into the ground without causing any damage or casualties, Israeli media reported.
Hamas’s armed wing said it fired six rockets at Occupied Palestine early on Thursday. Confrontations were also reported at sea where Palestinian militants in Gaza said they fired mortars and rockets at Israeli gunboats shooting at the coastal territory.
Palestinians said Israel has targeted more than 120 homes in its offensive. Several Gaza government buildings were hit on Thursday. The Israeli military claimed on Wednesday it had bombed 750 sites in Gaza — 326 on Wednesday alone — including 60 rocket launchers and 11 homes of senior Hamas members. It described those dwellings as command centers.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is to address the UN Security Council on Thursday over the worst Israeli-Palestinian violence since an eight day war fought in 2012.
“Gaza is on a knife edge. The deteriorating situation is leading to a downward spiral which could quickly get beyond anyone’s control,” he said.
“The risk of violence expanding further still is real. Gaza, and the region as a whole, cannot afford another full-blown war.”
Washington and Berlin backed Israel’s actions in Gaza, while the European Union and UN urged restraint on both sides.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday condemned rocket attacks coming from Gaza in a telephone call with Netanyahu, a government spokeswoman said.
“The chancellor today telephoned Mr. Netanyahu and condemned without reservation rocket fire on Israel,” she said.
“There is no justification” for such attacks, Merkel told Netanyahu, according to the spokeswoman.
Meanwhile, in an attack after darkness fell, Israel targeted a car marked as a media vehicle of a Gaza website that had the letters “TV” on it. It killed the driver, medical officials said.
Four people were killed in the bombing of a cafe in Khan Younis, and a 37-year-old man was killed in central Gaza, hospital officials said.
The Israeli-Palestinian violence began building up three weeks ago when Israel launched a brutal military crackdown on the West Bank after the disappearance of three Israeli teens. They were found dead last week, shortly before Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khudair was kidnapped and burned alive in Jerusalem in an apparent Israeli nationalist attack.
Cairo brokered a truce after Israel’s eight-day war between on Gaza two years ago, but the current military government’s hostility towards Islamists in general and Hamas in particular, which it accuses of aiding fellow militants in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, could make any Egyptian mediation role difficult now. Hamas denies those allegations.
Under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Cairo has secured closures on the Gaza border, adding to economic pressures on the enclave from an already crippling Israeli blockade.
But Egyptian authorities opened the Rafah crossing with the Gaza Strip early Thursday to allow hundreds of Palestinians injured during the ongoing Israeli offensive to receive medical treatment, Ma’an news agency reported.
Israeli leaders have warned the campaign may be lengthy and expand into a ground invasion of one of the world’s most densely populated territories.
“We are putting the pressure up every day,” Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner said. “Is it leading a to a ground force incursion? I still can’t confirm that will actually happen. I can confirm that we are making all necessary preparations in order to be ready for that.”
The Israeli military had called up 20,000 reserve troops to back up regular forces mobilized for Gaza, Lerner added.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is based in the West Bank, denounced the offensive on Wednesday.
“This war is not against Hamas or any faction but is against the Palestinian people,” said the Western-backed Abbas, who entered a power-sharing arrangement with Hamas in April after years of feuding.
