Israeli shelling near the southern Gaza town of Rafah killed at least 40 people yesterday, the local hospital said, as a ceasefire that went into effect only hours earlier crumbled.
Israel accused Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups of violating the US and UN-mediated truce, but did not elaborate, amid Israeli media reports that gunmen had fired at Israeli soldiers in the Rafah area.
The 72-hour break announced in a joint statement by US Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was the most ambitious attempt so far to end more than three weeks of fighting and followed mounting international alarm over a rising Palestinian civilian death toll.
Photo: AFP
The ceasefire was to be followed by Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in Cairo on a longer-term solution.
Israel launched its offensive in Hamas-dominated Gaza on July 8, unleashing air and naval bombardments said to be in response to a surge of cross-border rocket attacks. Tanks and infantry pushed into the territory of 1.8 million on July 17.
Gaza officials report that at least 1,459 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed and 7,000 wounded. Sixty-one Israeli soldiers are said to have been killed, with more than 400 wounded. Three civilians have reportedly been killed by Palestinian rockets in Israel.
About two hours after the truce went into effect, a Reuters photographer and the Gaza Interior Ministry said Israeli tanks opened fire in the southern Rafah area. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
An official in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Hamas and other armed groups in the Gaza Strip had “flagrantly violated the ceasefire,” but did not elaborate.
A local official in an Israeli southern border community said on Israel’s Channel 10 television station that sirens warning of rocket attacks had sounded. No casualties or damage were reported.
After the ceasefire began at 8am local time, Gaza’s streets began to fill with Palestinian families. Laden with belongings, they streamed back to homes they fled during fierce fighting that destroyed or damaged thousands of dwellings.
In Israel, sirens that have sent tens of thousands running for shelter daily fell silent.
Amid strong public support in Israel for the Gaza campaign, Netanyahu had faced intense pressure from abroad to stand down his forces.
International calls for an end to the bloodshed intensified after shelling on Wednesday that killed 15 people sheltering in a UN-run school in Gaza’s Jabalya refugee camp.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said operations were continuing to destroy a warren of tunnels through which Hamas has reportedly menaced Israel’s southern towns and army bases.
“We are doing what needs to be done in order to neutralize them,” she said.
A senior US Department of State official traveling with Kerry said US Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns would arrive in Cairo today and that Frank Lowenstein, the acting US envoy for Middle East peace, and another US official, Jonathan Schwartz, would be there yesterday. He said he believed the Palestinians would be in Cairo yesterday, while the Israelis would arrive today.
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