By IINA,
Gaza City : The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip is continuing to climb with Israel keeping up its offensive on the territory for a 19th straight day, pushing deeper into densely populated areas. By last count, 978 Gazans, many of them women and children, have died in the Israeli assault since it began on December 27.
Diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict meanwhile appeared to make little ground, although Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, arrived in Cairo this morning to again push for a ceasefire.
The UN chief met Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, today. Ban will also meet leaders of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey in course of the tour, but he has indicated he would not have direct contact with Hamas fighters. Ban has called for an immediate ceasefire, but both Israel and Hamas have ignored his pleas.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Israel’s offensive was ‘becoming more ferocious each day as the number of victims rises. ‘Israel is keeping up this aggression to wipe out our people over there,’ he added from his base in the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian medical sources said around 70 people were killed yesterday, taking the overall toll to around 978 Palestinians, with another 4,400 wounded. Israeli special forces backed by tanks and air strikes had thrust ever deeper into Gaza’s City, advancing hundreds of meters into several neighborhoods in the south, witnesses said. The crump of tank shells and the crackle of gunfire echoed through much of the day. After a comparatively quiet night, large plumes of smoke were seen rising over Gaza City today morning. A house near the centre of the city was ablaze after Israelis bombed the area.
Periodic gunfire between Palestinian fighters and Israeli forces could be heard. Israeli helicopters could be heard firing and at least two big explosions were heard from the western and northern parts of the city, he added. The Israeli military says six soldiers were injured during clashes overnight. Al Jazeera’s Zeina Awad, reporting from the Israeli side of the Gaza border, said the Israeli public was still largely supportive of the military campaign as the general feeling was that it was going very much in Israel’s favor. The view is that the longer the offensive goes on, the better for Israel as it creates “facts on the ground”, weakening Hamas’s infrastructure and very likely weakening its negotiating position for any ceasefire agreement.
Yesterday, Ismail Haniya, the deposed Palestinian prime minister and Hamas leader, called for a ceasefire without mentioning the group’s long-held demand that Israel lift its blockade of the territory, although it remained unclear if this was a softening of Hamas’s stance. Israel says 10 Israeli soldiers and three civilians hit by Hamas rockets have been killed so far in the campaign, a casualty rate that the Israeli public seems willing to accept. The conflict has left 4,300 Gazans wounded, Palestinian medics say.
The senior UN aid official for Gaza appealed to the international community to protect Gaza’s civilians, saying nowhere in the territory of 1.5 million people was safe any longer with the conflict becoming “a test of our humanity”. “All the people, the first thing they say to me and the last thing they say to me is ‘Please, we need protection, nowhere is safe’,” John Ging, the director of operations for the UN Relief and Works Agency, told reporters. His plea came as the town of Rafah near the Egyptian border suffered extensive Israeli bombardment causing several thousand residents to flee their homes on Tuesday. Israel is using “bunker-busting” bombs in an attempt to destroy underground tunnels it says have been used to smuggle weapons and goods into the blockaded Gaza Strip.