GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel on Wednesday intensified air attacks on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip following a failed Egyptian cease-fire effort, targeting the homes of four senior leaders of the Islamic militant movement. It also told tens of thousands of residents to leave Gaza’s border areas ahead of more strikes.
The Palestinian death toll in nine days of fighting rose to 204, with some 1,450 wounded, Palestinian health officials said. On the Israeli side, one man was killed and several people were wounded since the fighting erupted on July 8.
The renewed bombings came a day after Israel initially accepted an Egyptian truce proposal that called for a halt of hostilities. That was to be followed by talks on the terms of a longer-term cease-fire, including easing Gaza’s seven-year-old border blockade by Israel and Egypt.
Hamas rejected the plan and instead launched more rockets at Israel. The militant group views a significant easing of the blockade as key to its survival, but does not believe Egypt’s current rulers — who deposed a Hamas-friendly government in Cairo last year — can be fair brokers.
As Cairo’s effort collapsed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Hamas will pay a high price for rejecting the truce offer.
The website of the Gaza Interior Ministry said Israel warplanes carried out dozens of air strikes before dawn Wednesday, targeting 30 houses, including those of senior Hamas leaders Mahmoud Zahar, Jamila Shanti, Fathi Hamas and Ismail Ashkar.
Zahar was a key figure in Hamas’ violent takeover of Gaza in 2007, while the other three were members of the Palestinian parliament elected in 2006. Many Hamas leaders have gone into hiding since the beginning of the Israeli offensive.
Alongside the air strikes, Israel also told tens of thousands of residents of the northern town of Beit Lahiya and the Zeitoun and Shijaiyah neighborhoods of Gaza City, all near the border with Israel, to evacuate their homes by 8 a.m. Wednesday. The warnings were delivered in automated phone calls, text messages and leaflets dropped from planes.
The Israeli military said in its message that large numbers of rockets were launched from these areas and that Israel plans to bomb these locations.
“Whoever disregards these instructions and fails to evacuate immediately, endangers their own lives, as well as those of their families,” the message said.
On Wednesday morning, hundreds of residents of Zeitoun and Shijaiyah were seen walking in the streets, carrying small bags with belongings.
Older children carried smaller ones, in their arms or on their backs. Some of the women and children cried, looking terrified.
The Wafa Rehabilitation Center in Shijaiyah, which cares for 15 disabled and elderly patients, received several calls demanding the patients evacuate, said its director, Basman Ashi.
He said an Israel shell hit near the building, causing damage to the second floor, but no injuries. Ashi said he won’t evacuate because his elderly patients have nowhere to go.
Four foreign volunteers — from England, the U.S., France and Sweden — have set up camp at the rehabilitation center to deter the military from targeting it.
English volunteer Rina Andolini, 32, said the patients range in age from 12 to over 70 and none can walk or move without assistance. She said there are also 17 Palestinian staff members.
Andolini said the patients are living in a constant state of fear, intensified by the Israeli tank shelling from across the border.
When asked about the situation at the rehabilitation center, the office of the Israeli military spokesman said its residents “have been asked repeatedly to leave.”
“There is a rocket launching site in the area,” the military said, adding that Gaza militants use the center to hide “behind civilians.”
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Enav reported from Jerusalem.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
And the innocents will rebuild ,how ?
Like 200 wild bulls running amok in a china shop, and then blaming the china for being fragile. Why is the phrase “war crimes” or “crimes against humanity” found nowhere in this article?
The people suffer from the arrogance and ignorance of the appointed leaders like bibi and his zionist cabal! Who never want Peace and broke it in 2008 and 2012 and now this.
All the people…the Israeli and the Palestinian…But mostly the Palestinian
http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/israel-viciously-truth.html.
Cut off the $4 Billion gift to these cretins.
The truly sad part of the story is only about ten percent of the 12.7 million Jews in the world are Semites and have any ties to ancient Israel according to Dr Eran Elhaik, an Israeli geneticist.
Ninety percent of the world’s 12.7 million Jewish population is Ashkenazi.
Ashkenazi ancestry comes from Slav, Bulgar, Iranian and Turkic tribes which established the Khazar empire in that region – which at its peak stretched from Kiev in the West to the Aral Sea in the Southeast.
The Palestinians are Semites and have ancestral ties to their land.They’ve had over ninety percent of Palestine taken from them by a people who mostly have no ties to the land. Ironic that Israel’s right-wing zealots are themselves the true anti-Semitics when it comes to the Palestinians.
None of that really matters as America keeps funding Israel’s expansion. In essence, we’re funding the slaughter of innocent civilians. It would be called state sponsored terrorism if it were happening anywhere else. We most likely always will fund Israel and keep looking the other way because as Ariel Sharon Said Oct 3rd 2001:
Mommy, what’s the Geneva Conventions??
https://7e8c.https.cdn.softlayer.net/807E8C/origin.theweek.com/img/dir_0122/61145_cartoon_main.jpg