Gaza City : Israeli tank fire killed a four-year-old boy in the northern Gaza Strip on the first day of Eid Al-Fitr on Monday in the first death since the two sides began observing an unofficial lull, Palestinian medics said, AFP reported.
The child was killed when a shell hit a house to the east of Jabaliya where clashes had recently erupted between Israeli troops and Hamas militants, Ashraf al-Qudra, the emergency services spokesman said. The boy, Samih Ijneid, was the first person to be killed in Gaza on Monday although three others also succumbed to their injuries during the night, Qudra said. The latest deaths raise to 1,036 the total number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza to destroy rockets and cross-border tunnels which began on July 8. Earlier on Monday, the U.N. Security Council had called for an immediate and unconditional humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
In an emergency session held late Sunday in New York, the 15-member council released a statement calling for a truce between Hamas and Israel. U.S. President Barack Obama, in a phone conversation on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,emphasized the need for an immediate, unconditional humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, the White House said. Urging a permanent end to hostilities on the basis of the 2012 ceasefire agreement, Obama added that “ultimately, any lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must ensure the disarmament of terrorist groups and the demilitarization of Gaza,” Reuters reported.
On Sunday, Hamas belatedly said it had agreed to a 24-hour humanitarian truce with Israel, shortly after Israel announced a resumption of hostilities in Gaza following a day-long pause. “In response to the U.N.’s intervention request to monitor the situation … it has been agreed between the resistance factions that a 24-hour humanitarian truce will start from 2 p.m. (1100 GMT),” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement, AFP reported. The announcement came after the Israeli army announced earlier Sunday that it was resuming its raids on Gaza by land, sea and air after Hamas continued firing rockets, ending a unilateral 12-hour humanitarian truce. If implemented, the truce will temporarily suspend the fighting in the Gaza strip where more than 1,050 Palestinians were killed, mostly civilians.