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Netanyahu Says Gaza Offensive Will Continue As 8 Killed In Gaza

By Ma'an News Agency

24 August, 2014
Maannews.net

GAZA CITY -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel's Gaza offensive would continue as long as necessary, a day after an Egyptian call for a ceasefire and new truce talks.

Israeli air strikes killed eight Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave on Sunday and injured dozens more, bringing the total death toll to 2,111. The United Nations says 70 percent of the Palestinian victims were civilians, and that among the dead have been 478 children.

"Operation Protective Edge will continue until its aims are achieved ... it may take time," Netanyahu said of the offensive launched on July 8.

As of Sunday afternoon, Israel had carried out 27 strikes while 50 rockets were fired from Gaza, 47 of which hit Israel, an army spokeswoman said.

The new bloodshed came after Israel pounded Gaza with at least 60 strikes on Saturday, killing 10 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and bringing down a 12-story apartment block.

There was still no sign of either side adopting the ceasefire Egypt appealed for on Saturday to allow negotiators to return to Cairo to thrash out the details of a durable truce.

Since a previous round of frantic Egyptian diplomacy collapsed on Tuesday, shattering nine days of calm, 88 Palestinians and a four-year-old Israeli boy have been killed in the violence.

At a special cabinet session at the defense ministry in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu repeated his warning of harsh retribution for the death of the Israeli child on Friday in a rocket strike on a kibbutz near the Gaza border.

PM warns Lebanon, Syria

"Hamas is paying, and will continue to pay, a heavy price for the crimes it carries out," he said.

"I call on residents of Gaza to immediately leave any structure from which Hamas carries out terror activity against us. All such sites are a target for us."

Netanyahu also added a veiled warning to neighboring Lebanon and Syria after overnight rocket fire into Israel.

"There is not and will not be any immunity for anyone who fires at Israeli citizens, and that is true for every sector and every border," he said.

Earlier on Sunday, five rockets fired from Syrian-controlled territory slammed into the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights but caused no casualties, the Israeli army said.

Late Saturday, a rocket fired from Lebanon struck northern Israel, causing damage but no casualties.

Israel has so far not responded to either attack.

In a statement on Saturday, the Egyptian foreign ministry urged "concerned parties" in the Gaza conflict to accept an open-ended truce and resume indirect negotiations in Cairo.

Previous ceasefires with fixed timeframes have failed to give Egyptian mediators shuttling between Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams enough time to broker a deal acceptable to both.

The Palestinian team has demanded consistently that any long-term truce include an end to an eight-year siege that has crippled Gaza's economy, in addition to the re-opening of a closed airport and seaport among other things.

The demands are consistent with the terms of the Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the Palestinians in the 1990s, but which Israel has failed to abide by amid its refusal to consider direct negotiations of any kind with Hamas, which it considers a terrorist group.

Israeli authorities have said that they would be willing to extend the ceasefire indefinitely but previously stressed that a long-term agreement should include the demilitarization of the Strip.

The Palestinian team has scoffed at this demand, saying that it was Palestinian fighters who prevented the full-scale infiltration and re-occupation of Gaza by Israeli forces in recent weeks.

Egypt truce talks bid

The invitation to new truce talks by Egypt came after a meeting on Saturday between Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

"What interests us now is putting a stop to the bloodshed," Abbas said.

"As soon as a ceasefire goes into effect, the two sides can sit down and discuss their demands," he said, adding that, as in previous rounds of talks, Hamas would be represented in the Palestinian delegation.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP that "any proposal offered to the movement will be discussed".

Abbas held two rounds of talks in Qatar on Thursday and Friday with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal before heading to Cairo.

At least 2,111 Palestinians and 68 people on the Israeli side, all but four of them soldiers, have been killed since July 8.

Around 460,000 people have fled their homes in Gaza -- more than a quarter of the enclave's 1.8 million population.

7 Palestinians including baby girl killed in Israeli airstrikes

Seven Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Sunday and dozens more wounded as Israeli bombardment on the Gaza Strip continued for the 48th day, while rockets fired from Lebanon and Syria into Israel threatened to escalate the conflict.

The airstrikes early Sunday on Gaza brought the total death total in Israel's massive assault to 2,111 with more than 10,500 injured, as the United Nations said that more than 460,000 Palestinians were still displaced and living in shelters across the densely packed coastal enclave.

Five Palestinians were killed and dozens others were injured around noon as airstrikes continued to pound Gaza after two were killed overnight.

An Israeli airstrike killed a teenage boy and a baby girl and injured five others in Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip.

Spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health Ashraf al-Qidra confirmed that the bodies of 2-year-old Zeina Bilal Abu Taqiyya and 17-year-old Muhammad Wael al-Khudari were taken to al-Shifa hospital.

Medical sources said that Muhammad al-Luqa was killed and another was injured in an Israeli airstrike on a motorcycle near al-Atatra Square in Beit Lahiya.

At least one man was killed and 10 injured after an airstrike hit the home of the Tallini family in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip around noon.

Medical sources said more bodies are believed to be buried under the wreckage of the house and rescue teams are still working in the area.

An Israeli airstrike on a car in the vicinity of the Palestine Stadium in central Gaza, meanwhile, left the driver dead. A Ma'an reporter in Gaza quoted eyewitnesses as saying that a fire broke out in the car after it was hit directly by an Israeli missile. The driver was killed instantly and a number of bystanders were injured.

Shortly before that, rescue teams recovered a dead body of a man from the rubble of Tallini family home in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

Separately, an Israeli airstrike hit home of Nabhan family in the northern Gaza Strip injuring four.

Early Sunday, witnesses said that Israeli aircraft targeted a group of people near the Fayrouz Towers in northwestern Gaza City, killing two and injuring 10.

Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra identified the two casualties as Badr Hashim Abu Mnih and Yahya Abu al-Omareen, both in their twenties. They were taken to al-Shifa Hospital.

Israeli aircraft also struck the largest commercial center in the southern city of Rafah, completely leveling a building with dozens of shops, two weeks after an office in the same building was hit.

In western Gaza City, an Israeli airstrike hit the home of the al-Ghulayni family. No injuries were reported in the first strike, but a second strike that occurred soon after left six injured after it struck a crowd that gathered to survey the damage.

An Israeli airstrike also targeted a house in the al-Barka neighborhood of Deir al-Balah without warning, leaving a number injured, in addition to a home in the al-Maghazi refugee camp which was also destroyed. Another Palestinian was injured after an Israeli airstrike hit the Beit Lahiya sports club.

Israeli aircraft also launched dozens of air strikes on agricultural lands and open areas in different regions of the Gaza Strip.

Early Sunday, meanwhile, the Israeli military said five rockets from Syria hit the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, causing no reported injuries.

The military said a few hours earlier that a rocket fired from Lebanon struck the Upper Galilee causing damage to a structure, with a security source telling AFP it hit a Druze village.

No group took responsibility for what appeared to be a show of support for Hamas, in an act similar to rocket launches from Lebanon last month.

There was no immediate Israeli response but a Lebanese security source said Israeli helicopters were seen over the border area.

The Israeli military said that more than 50 rockets were also fired from Gaza into Israel Sunday.

Abbas meets Sisi

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas continued meetings on Saturday in Cairo to push for a lasting truce with Israel.

"What interests us now is putting a stop to the bloodshed," he said after meeting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

"As soon as a ceasefire goes into effect, the two sides can sit down and discuss their demands."

Abbas's meeting with Sisi came after he held two rounds of talks in Qatar on Thursday and Friday with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, whose Islamist movement is the de facto ruler of Gaza.

Egypt's foreign ministry issued a statement calling on "concerned parties to accept a ceasefire of unlimited duration and to resume indirect negotiations in Cairo."

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP that "any proposal offered to the movement will be discussed."

Indirect ceasefire negotiations between Israel and a Palestinian delegation have failed to make any progress despite weeks of diplomacy.

The Palestinian team has demanded consistently that any long-term truce include an end to an eight-year siege that has crippled Gaza's economy, in addition to the re-opening of a closed airport and seaport among other things.

The demands are consistent with the terms of the Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the Palestinians in the 1990s, but which Israel has failed to abide by amid its refusal to consider direct negotiations of any kind with Hamas, which it considers a terrorist group.

Israeli authorities have said that they would be willing to extend the ceasefire indefinitely but previously stressed that a long-term agreement should include the demilitarization of the Strip.

The Palestinian team has scoffed at this demand, saying that it was Palestinian fighters who prevented the full-scale infiltration and re-occupation of Gaza by Israeli forces in recent weeks.

 

 




 

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