Israel bombarded Gaza with air strikes and Palestinian armed factions kept up cross-border rocket fire, with no firm sign on Wednesday of any imminent ceasefire despite international calls to end more than a week of fighting.
Israeli leaders said they were pressing on with an offensive against Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, but an Israeli military spokesman acknowledged that with an estimated 12,000 missiles and mortars in the groups’ Gaza arsenal, “they still have enough rockets to fire”.
Two Thai workers were killed and seven people were wounded in a rocket strike on Tuesday on an Israeli farm just over the Gaza border, police said. Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
Rockets were also launched early on Wednesday, with sirens sounding in the coastal city of Ashdod, south of Tel Aviv, and in communities closer to the Gaza border. There were no reports of damage or injuries.
Randa Abu Sultan, 45, said her family were all gathered in one room to sit out the night.
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“We’re all terrified by the sound of explosions, missiles and fighter jets,” said the mother of seven told AFP.
“My four-year-old son tells me he’s scared that if he falls asleep he’ll wake up to find us dead.”
Gaza medical officials say 217 Palestinians have been killed, including 63 children, and more than 1,400 wounded since the fighting began on May 10. Israeli authorities say 12 people have been killed in Israel, including two children.
Nearly 450 buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or badly damaged, including six hospitals and nine primary-care health centres, since the current conflict began, the United Nations humanitarian agency said. Some 48,000 of the 52,000 displaced had gone to 58 UN-run schools.
Israel said its aircraft attacked homes belonging to several Hamas militants that were used as command centres or for weapons storage. Israeli artillery shelled targets in the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses said.
Israeli Army said more than 3,450 rockets had been launched at it from Gaza, some falling short and others shot down by its Iron Dome air defences. It put the number of militants it has killed at around 160.
Israel’s near-relentless bombing campaign has left two million Palestinians in Gaza desperate for reprieve.
The humanitarian crisis has deepened in the impoverished strip, with the UN saying 72,000 Palestinians have been displaced.
But a convoy of international aid trucks that started rolling into Gaza through a border crossing from Israel, Kerem Shalom, was halted when Israel quickly shuttered it again, citing a mortar attack on the area.
On Tuesday, Israeli forces and protesters clashed across the occupied West Bank and in east Jerusalem, as Palestinians rallied in solidarity with their besieged Gazan counterparts.
The Palestinian health ministry said Israeli forces shot dead four Palestinians, including one the Israeli army said had attempted to attack soldiers, bringing up to 24 those Palestinians killed there since May 10.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams had treated more than 150 people in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, including 35 with live bullet wounds.
Israel’s army said troops came under fire north of Ramallah, and two of its soldiers were injured.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’ Fatah movement had called for a “day of anger” Tuesday, a call echoed in Arab and ethnically mixed towns inside Israel.
“We are here to raise our voice and stand with the people in Gaza who are being bombed,” Ramallah protester Aya Dabour told AFP.
In east Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, Palestinian protesters faced off against police, who used stun grenades and “skunk water” cannon to disperse protesters.
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, Ramadan clashes between police and worshippers at al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and a court case by Israeli settlers to evict Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem have fuelled the tensions in the West Bank.
France called on Tuesday for a UN Security Council resolution on violence between Israel and Palestinian militants, as diplomats said the United States told the body a “public pronouncement right now” would not help calm the crisis.
“Our goal is to get to the end of this conflict. We are going to evaluate day by day what the right approach is. It continues to be that quiet, intensive behind-the-scenes discussions are tactically our approach at this time,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Tuesday.
The United States, a key Israel ally, has repeatedly blocked adoption of a joint UN Security Council statement calling for a halt to the hostilities.
Zhang Jun, Beijing’s ambassador to the UN, told reporters his team had heard the French ceasefire proposal and China was “supportive”.
Another diplomat said the proposal would seek to cease hostilities, but also “allow humanitarian access”.
But EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell backed mounting calls for a ceasefire and urged Israel’s military to act in a “proportionate” manner.
Egypt and UN mediators also stepped up diplomatic efforts, and the UN General Assembly will discuss the violence on Thursday.
Germany called for a ceasefire and offered more aid to help Palestinians before emergency European Union talks.
Israel’s N12 TV news, quoting unidentified Palestinian sources, reported that Egypt, via “secret channels”, had proposed that Israel-Gaza fighting end on Thursday morning.
Ezzat El Reshiq, a member of Hamas’ political bureau who is based in Qatar, issued a statement on Tuesday saying reports that it had agreed to such a ceasefire were untrue.
“There has been no agreement reached over specific timings for a ceasefire,” he said. “We confirm that efforts and contacts are serious and are continuing and the demands of our people are known and clear.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated in a post on Twitter on Tuesday that Israel’s attacks “will continue for as long as it takes to restore calm” for all of its citizens.
Netanyahu said Israel’s strikes had “set Hamas back many years” – which some Israeli news commentators took as a possible prelude to a ceasefire within days when he could claim victory.
