More than 700 Gazans have been killed, including children and women, in Israel’s offensive on Gaza.
Israeli troops and navy continued to pound the populated areas of the Gaza through out the day, killing at least 42 people on Tuesday. According to reports, an Israeli strike killed at least 42 people, majority of them were children, who had taken refuge inside a UN school in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, in the third such attack in a day, medics said. The strike hit near a school run by UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, in the northern town of Jabaliya, they said. The people inside the building had taken refuge from the fighting.
So far, 735 people have been killed in 11-day Israeli offensive in which most of the victims are women and children. Earlier in the day, two people were killed when an artillery shell slammed into a school in the southern town of Khan Yunis and three people were killed in an air strike on a school in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, medics said.
The impoverished Gaza Strip is one of the most overcrowded corners of the Earth, where children make up 56 percent of the 1.5 million population. Aid workers believe just about every Gaza child has been traumatised by the incessant bombardment which Israel says targets the Islamist rulers and aims to silence the daily rocket fire aimed at the Jewish state.
“They can’t play, they can’t sleep, they can’t go to school. They’re traumatised,” said Dempsey. Civilians have virtually nowhere to hide. The borders are sealed off under an 18-month-old Israeli embargo, and schools, where many families have sought refuge, are not safe. Israeli tanks supported by helicopter gunships move into city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip before dawn, said witnesses. The armored force is met by return fire from Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups. Israeli Defence minister Ehud Barak tells public radio Israeli forces have “cut the Gaza Strip in two and surrounded Gaza City.”
At least 12 members of the same extended family, including seven children, killed in an Israeli air strike on their Gaza City home.
Israeli strikes near three UN schools kill 48 people who had taken refuge in the buildings, medics said. Forty-three of the deaths were at one school. The army said three soldiers from the elite Golani Brigade were killed and 24 wounded in northern Gaza when accidentally hit by Israeli tank fire. Army said a paratroop officer was killed during clashes with Hamas. An Israeli soldier is killed and four others wounded in clashes with Palestinians north of Gaza City, leaving seven Israeli soldiers dead since the offensive began on December 27.
A dozen rockets are fired by Hamas, including one 45 kilometres inside southern Israel. A Hamas delegation goes to Cairo to discuss an Egyptian ceasfire proposal. The White House reiterates it wants to see a “durable” ceasefire, stopping short of endorsing a proposed humanitarian truce for Gaza. The UN Security Council calls a ministerial meeting to weigh an Arab call for an immediate ceasefire and for protection of Palestinian civilians.
The Palestinian death toll after 11 days of the Israeli offensive rises to at least 635 people, 160 of them children, Gaza medics said. Another 2,900 are wounded. Egypt said the number of wounded Palestinians who have died after being evacuated through the Rafah crossing has risen to 11. UN chief Ban Ki-moon says he is “deeply dismayed” by the strikes on three UN-run schools, calling them “totally unacceptable.”
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak invited Israel “without delay” to discuss security on the Egypt-Gaza border. A UN Security Council resolution on Gaza would “complicate” the task of achieving peace, French President Nicolas Sarkozy says after meeting
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri in an online message urges Muslims to attack Israeli and Western targets in response to the assault on Gaza.
(Article taken from my Blog)