Israel steps up operation in Gaza LIVE UPDATES
The Palestinian death toll from Israel’s 19-day operation has reached 1,032 people, Gaza’s Health Ministry told AFP.
Despite the 12-hour cease-fire between Hamas and Israel set for Saturday, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has urged the Palestinians, who earlier left their homes in Gaza, to “refrain from returning.”
“The IDF shall respond if terrorists choose to exploit this time to attack IDF personnel or fire at Israeli civilians,” the military’s spokesperson also said in a statement, adding that Israel will continue “the operational activities to locate and neutralize tunnels in the Gaza Strip” during the ceasefire.
Shajayia #gaza pic.twitter.com/bejlkGM3Pe
— Nicole Johnston (@nicolealjazeera) July 26, 2014
However, thousands of Palestinians ignored IDF warnings and returned to their Gaza homes to find scores of houses demolished and wreckage blocking the roads.
The residents encountered widespread destruction in the northern town of Beit Hanoun.
“Nothing is left. Everything I have is gone,” a Palestinian woman from the town told AP.
At least 100 bodies were recovered from the rubble in Gaza on Saturday, with many of them being partially decomposed, Ashraf al-Kidra, a Palestinian health official, said.
Al-Kidra spoke of 20 members of an extended family, including at least 10 children, who were killed by tank fire that hit a building on the edge of the town of Khan Younis.
Their funeral took place on Saturday, with hundreds of men marching, chanting “There is only God!” while carrying the bodies wrapped in white cloth.
Israeli military’s death toll in the ground offensive has reached 40, with the IDF announcing that three of their soldiers were killed in Gaza in the early hours on Saturday.
Paris meeting calls for ceasefire extension
Western foreign ministers from the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Qatar, Turkey and the US have called for an extension of the 12-hour cease-fire between Hamas and Israel during their meeting in Paris.
“All of us want to obtain, as quickly as possible, a durable, negotiated ceasefire that responds both to Israeli needs in terms of security and to Palestinian needs in terms of the social-economic development [of Gaza] and access to the territory of Gaza,” Laurent Fabius, France’s foreign minister, stressed.
Before/After – Al-Shahayeeh neighbourhood in Gaza (will credit when I find out who took the photographs) pic.twitter.com/gmimfcitu3
— Gary Spedding (@GarySpedding) July 26, 2014
His British counterpart, Philip Hammond, added that “the necessity right now is to stop the loss of life” in Gaza.
“And we stop the loss of life by getting this ceasefire to roll over for 12 hours, 24 hours or 48 hours – and then again until we have established the level of confidence that allows the parties to sit round a table to talk about the substantive issues,” Hammond explained.
Israel has replied to calls from the international community and agreed to extend the Gaza humanitarian truce by four hours – until midnight (21:00 GMT), a source in the country’s government told Reuters.
“As far as Israel is concerned, there is no reason to prevent Gaza’s people from stocking up on supplies, so long as the military can continue its work against the tunnels. Our war is not against the population,” an undisclosed official told the agency.
Israel launched a major air campaign in Gaza on July 8 and later sent ground troops into Hamas-ruled territory.
The IDF say that Operation Protective Edge is aimed at halting Palestinian rocket fire and destroying Hamas’s cross-border tunnels.