Gaza City: Israel has hit the Gaza Strip with air strikes and artillery fire on the seventh day of its offensive and as diplomatic efforts to halt the bloodshed intensified.
Aircraft struck three training facilities of Hamas's military wing, the Qassam Brigades, around the coastal territory early on Monday, but caused no casualties, medics and eyewitnesses said. They also hit buildings in Gaza City, Deir el-Balah in the southern part of the strip, and in the northern town of Jabaliya, injuring an unspecified number of people, Al Jazeera reported.
There was shelling reported in Beit Lahiya, in the far north of the strip, where Israel had earlier warned residents of an impending assault.
World powers prepared to meet over the spiraling violence as the Palestinian death toll from the Israeli air campaign hit 172 with another 1,230 people wounded, the emergency services said.
Fearing for their lives, about 17,000 people have taken shelter in installations of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, the agency said in a statement.
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.
Four rockets fired from southern Lebanon struck northern Israel early on Monday, Lebanese security sources said.No casualties were reported in Israel and the army responded with artillery fire.
Early 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.
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.
Israel has warned that preparations are under way for a possible ground incursion, with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman saying a decision was expected by Sunday. But Israeli media said that a meeting of Netanyahu's security cabinet ended Sunday night without giving the order for ground operations.
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. It also said Israel had destroyed 147 homes and badly damaged hundreds of others.
So far, no Israelis have been killed, although Hamas has fired hundreds of rockets into the country since the fighting began on July 8, 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.
Comments
| Quick linksNews
National
International
Regional
Politics
Education & Career
Business
Science & Technology
Health
Views & Analysis
The Funny Side
© 2012 Awaz Multimedia & Publications. All rights reserved.
The Israeli military released an aerial photo of the mosque it said it hit, saying Hamas hid rockets in it right next to another religious site and civilian homes. It said Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Gaza militant groups use this tactic of abusing religious sites to conceal weapons and establish underground tunnel networks, deliberately endangering its own civilians......... More
Also Read: Gaza Rhymes: Bombs, Pain and The Resistance
Chairman M. Hamid Ansari tried to calm down the members, saying law will take its course if Vaidik has done anything illegal. However, opposition members refused to relent and created...... More
Congress and caste parties decimated, whither Indian Muslims?By giving them frontline roles in communal conflicts, the Sangh Parivar has dignified Mochis, Khatiks (fruit sellers), Lohars (blacksmiths), Nayis (barbers), Valmikis (toilet cleaners), dhobis (laundry washers) in large numbers as Hindutva's foot soldiers..... More
A Real Euro-star and world's most expensive footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, refused to wear a jersey with Israeli flag saying: "I do not exchange my shirt .... More
Also Read: Palestinian president seeks UN probe into Israeli crimes