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.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats