#Gaza crisis: Shejaiya assault defines grimmest day :::: ''Two patients were killed in their beds'' :::: #Gazaconflict: Five dead at hospital hit by# Israeli strike :::: #HumanRight
22 july 2014
Gaza: ''Two patients were killed in their beds''
Every day, the rockets kept soaring in a trail of white vapour out of Gaza and Israeli air strikes pounded this blighted sliver of land along the Mediterranean.
Then came the ground offensive which intensified Israel's campaign. Then came Shejaiya.
Israel's assault on a densely populated neighborhood brought the greatest fighting and the grimmest news in this, the third Gaza conflagration in just six years.
Gaza's list of the dead crossed 500 and keeps climbing, according to figures from the health ministry here. The UN says the vast majority are civilians; many are children.
Israel's casualty toll was much lower. But confirmation that 13 soldiers were killed in the fight caused grief in a country where everyone serves in the army.
Israel said its troops met "a huge level of resistance" as they moved in to destroy "extensive tunnelling" underground, and the infrastructure for what it calculates as 10% of the rockets being fired into Israel.
Hamas fighters were visible on the streets of Shejaiya
In Shejaiya we saw Hamas spotters taking up positions on empty
streets, talking into telephones and walkie-talkies as they maintained a
lookout.Colleagues who arrived later in the day saw gunmen with black balaclavas and concealed weapons moving through the neighbourhood. And journalists and medics got caught in crossfire when a two-hour humanitarian truce was shattered in minutes.
'Where do we go?' As Israel digs in deeper, the fighting intensifies.
For many days now, Israel's Operation Protective Edge had almost seemed to be a ghost war. In areas we were able to reach, Hamas fighters had only been visible by the rockets they fired, and through defiant messages on their TV and radio networks.
Almost every day Israel reports that it has thwarted infiltration attempts through underground tunnels.
On the ground it has been women and children who keep emerging from front lines as they flee their homes close to Israel's border.
It was the same in Shejaiya, only worse.
When we arrived in the neighbourhood in the morning, after a night of Israeli shelling, the streets were largely deserted as black and white smoke billowed on the horizon, amid incessant artillery fire.
Residents were still escaping whenever and however they could. Some families darted out of doorways, one by one, into battered cars when they thought it was safe to make a run; others moved like a human stream flowing away in all directions.
Israel said it repeatedly warned residents to leave the area.
"We asked them to leave again and again," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told BBC Arabic TV.
"We called them up, we texted, and we sent them messages. But Hamas said 'don't leave'," - a reference to allegations that Hamas is using civilians as "human shields."
"Warning?" said Anas, a 20-year-old university student with a mop of curly black hair who stood on a street corner. "They don't warn us, they kill us."
Whenever we ask Gazans that question, they reply: "Where do we go?"
Many who fled Shejaiya have taken refuge in schools run by the UN
The UN says 43% of Gaza is now "affected by evacuation warnings" or declared a "no-go area".In the past four days, the numbers seeking shelter in UN-run schools shot up by 400%.
The UN is running out of supplies, morgues run out of space, and hospital wards are packed.
On day 13, Gaza's main Shifa Hospital took in the greatest number of casualties since this war began.
As the day wore on, one family after another huddled on a wooden bench at the entrance waiting for news of loved ones inside the emergency surgery unit.
The ambulances kept screaming in, bringing stretchers with them.
Emergency crews and ordinary civilians helped carry away the dead and injured
By early afternoon it was the turn of four inconsolable girls,
who sat with their wailing grandmother unable to offer much comfort.When their father Nihad joined them, he knelt close to deliver the bad news: their mother, 28-year-old Israa, was dead.
Then, for a moment, the four girls lost their father too. He fainted and lay slumped on the floor as medics rushed to help.
As the days go by, there's a sad familiar choreography to Gaza's recurrent wars. As the news gets grimmer, the demands mount for an urgent ceasefire.
And as the chorus of concern grows, both sides know their time may be running out, so military operations escalate, and the human cost deepens.
And this time, mediation is more complicated.
In 2012, neighbouring Egypt, then led by the Muslim Brotherhood, had more clout with Hamas. Now would-be peace-makers criss-cross the region from Qatar to Istanbul to Cairo, looking for the right voice at the right time.
The UN's top diplomat is already in the region, and Washington's man has just arrived.
Day 13 is over, and no-one can say whether day 14 will be any better. There is always the fear it could get even worse.
Gaza conflict: Five dead at hospital hit by Israeli strike
At least five people have been killed and 70 injured by an Israeli strike on a hospital in Gaza, Palestinians say.
The Israeli military said it had targeted a cache of anti-tank missiles in the hospital's "immediate vicinity".Overnight, more than 30 members of two Palestinian families died in Israeli strikes, Gazan health officials said.
On Monday evening Israel said seven of its soldiers had been killed in the past 24 hours, bringing the number of Israeli military dead to 25.
Two Israeli civilians have also died in the recent violence.
The Palestinian death toll from the two-week conflict has now passed 550, the majority of them civilians, according to Gaza's health ministry. The UN says more than 100,000 Gazans have now been displaced.
Israel says it has killed more than 170 militants since Thursday night, when it launched the ground offensive phase of its two-week old operation to end rocket fire from Gaza.
Ten militants were killed on Monday after using tunnels to get into Israel near the town of Sderot.
Push for ceasefire Palestinian television showed footage of wounded people being treated after the strike at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
Doctors say several Israeli tank shells hit the hospital's reception, intensive care unit and operating theatres.
Most of the wounded were doctors, according to Palestinian officials.
Appeals have been made to the Red Cross to help evacuate patients from the building, the BBC's Yolande Knell reports from Gaza.
Israel had told residents of neighbouring areas to head to Deir al-Balah for their own safety as its ground offensive continues to target neighbourhoods to the east of Gaza City for a second day, our correspondent adds.
The Israeli army said it had "successfully targeted" a cache of anti-tank missiles in the area.
"Civilian casualties are a tragic inevitability of [Hamas'] brutal and systematic exploitation of homes, hospitals and mosques in Gaza," it said in a statement.
Israel says that approximately 131 rockets and mortars were fired at Israel on Monday, of which at least 108 hit Israel and 17 were intercepted. No casualties were reported from these attacks.
Out of media player. Press enter to return or tab to continue.Paul Adams reports from the almost deserted streets of Shaaf in Gaza where rockets are "coming in all the time"Quentin Somerville reports that Israel's government undeterred.In Egypt, US Secretary of State John Kerry is due to hold talks to try to arrange a ceasefire.The UN Security Council has issued a call for an "immediate
cessation of hostilities", but did not endorse a strongly worded draft
resolution backed by Arab states.President Barack Obama said the US had "serious concerns
about the rising number of Palestinian civilian deaths and the loss of
Israeli lives", and said the focus of the international community should
be "to bring about a ceasefire... that can stop the deaths of innocent
civilians".
At least 67 people were reported killed in the assault on Shejaiya, which Israel said was a "terror stronghold".
Sunday was the deadliest day of the conflict so far; more than 100 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers lost their lives.
reports from Ashkelon, Israel
More sirens were heard today in Tel Aviv, as rockets fired by Hamas from Gaza target Israeli towns and cities.
Compared to the state-of-the-art weapons Israel is using to bombard Gaza, this is a relatively unsophisticated assault. But the rockets spread fear, and pose a real threat to the security of Israeli citizens.
Israel does have its Iron Dome missile defence system. I watched today as one missile battery shot down several incoming rockets fired by Hamas.
But the Palestinian militant group has also begun attacking Israel on the ground. For the second time in a few days, militants used a tunnel dug under the border to infiltrate into Israeli territory.
Diplomatic efforts to end the fighting are intensifying, but there is a mood in Israel of grim determination
john Kerry, who was apparently unaware he was being recorded, said: "It's a hell of a pinpoint operation" - speaking on US TV network Fox News
Palestinian emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said nine members of one family were killed in overnight Israeli attacks on Rafah, on the border with Egypt.
In Khan Younis, in the south of Gaza, at least 23 members of one family died when a building was hit by an Israeli air strike, officials said.
"Doesn't this indicate that Israel is ruthless? Are we the liars?" family member Sabri Abu Jamea told the Associated Press news agency.
"The evidence is here in the morgue refrigerators."
Further north, Israel continued its ground operation in the eastern fringes of Gaza City.
After moving into the Shejaiya neighbourhood on Sunday in
search of rocket sites and tunnels, nearby areas were pounded with
artillery on Monday morning
gaza 'terror tunnels' - in 60 secs
Israel says the ground operation is necessary to target Hamas' network of tunnels, which have been used by militants to get into Israel and carry out attacks.
But the UN, Palestinians and Arab states have expressed alarm at the number of civilian casualties.
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