Israel pounded targets across the Gaza Strip yesterday, saying that no ceasefire was near as top US and UN diplomats pursued talks on halting fighting that has claimed more than 500 lives.
US Secretary of State John Kerry held talks in Egypt with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri, while UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was due to arrive in Israel later in the day. Both have voiced alarm at the mounting civilian casualties.
Ban was due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv and then see the Palestinian prime minister in the West Bank.
Photo: EPA
Meanwhile, Palestinian civilians in densely populated Gaza have no place to hide from Israel’s military offensive and children are paying the heaviest price, the UN said yesterday.
“There is literally no safe place for civilians,” Jens Laerke, spokesman of the UN Office for Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA), told a news briefing in Geneva.
However, there was no let-up in the fighting around Gaza, with plumes of black smoke spiraling into the sky and Israeli shells raining down on the enclave.
Hamas, the dominant group in the Gaza Strip, and its allies fired more rockets into Israel, triggering sirens in Tel Aviv.
One hit a town on the fringes of Ben-Gurion International Airport, lightly injuring two people, officials said.
Israel launched its offensive on July 8 to halt missile salvoes out of Gaza by Hamas, which was angered by a crackdown on its supporters in the occupied West Bank.
“A ceasefire is not near,” said Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, viewed as the most dovish member of Netanyahu’s inner security Cabinet.
“I see no light at the end of the tunnel,” she told Israel’s Army Radio.
With the conflict entering its third week, the Palestinian death toll rose to 546, including nearly 100 children and many other civilians, Gaza health officials said.
The Israeli military said it had killed 183 militants.
Israel’s casualties also mounted, with the military announcing the deaths of two more soldiers, bringing the number of army fatalities to 27 — almost three times as many as were killed in the last ground invasion of Gaza, in a 2008 to 2009 war.
Two Israeli civilians have also been killed by Palestinian rocket fire into Israel.
Laerke said the priority for OCHA and other aid agencies was protecting civilians and evacuating and treating the wounded.
Nearly 500 homes have been destroyed by Israeli air strikes and 100,000 people have sought shelter in schools of the UN Relief and Works Agency, where they need food, water and mattresses, he said.
The overwhelming majority of people killed so far in the conflict are Palestinians, including 121 Gaza children under the age of 18 who make up one-third of the total civilian casualties, Juliette Touma of UNICEF said.
More than 900 Palestinian children are also reported to have been injured, UNICEF said.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS