Smoke rises from buildings in northern Gaza | Rex
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahusaid in a cabinet meeting this morning that Israel will not agree to a truce until all Hamas tunnels are destroyed, noting that that could mean another several days of warfare. A widening of the ground campaign is still on the table and 16,000 reserve troops have been called up.
"Progress has been satisfactory, and we are completing our treatment of the terror tunnels," Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said at the meeting. "During the fighting, soldiers are finding new tunnel shafts, and they are also being neutralized."
20 targets were hit by Israeli forces late last night and early this morning, killing 17 Gazans,according to Maan News Agency. Five were killed when a bomb exploded in a crowd near a mosque in Khan Younis. A strike on the Abu Hilal house at dawn killed three and injured several more, including three children whose mother was also killed in the hit. In Beit Lahiya, a strike on the al-Hamoud house this morning injured 55.
The United States came under criticism from activists today for providing Israel with mortars and ammunition for grenade launchers. A U.S. defense official stressed that that the delivery of these weapons “was more a matter of convenience to rotate U.S. ammunition stocks than an emergency request from Israel.”
Representatives of the Palestinian Authority (PA) have announced their intention to sign the Rome Statute, a necessary step in bringing charges of war crimes committed by Israel before the International Criminal Court (ICC). In order to bring a case before the ICC, countries must be party to the Rome Statute.
"We have a decision to accede to the Rome Statute,” saidHanan Ashrawi of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. “All we need to do is send the letter… If this assault continues and doesn’t.”
Ashrawi asserted that the PA is not concerned about being charged for rocket fire directed at Israel by Gazan militants.
“International law makes a distinction between self-defense and occupation and aggression,” she said. “We are a people under occupation, and there is a real difference between a people a under occupation and an occupying power. We do have legal counsel, don’t worry.”
At least 1,372 Palestinians have been killed and 7,000 wounded since Israel's 'Operation Protective Edge' began 24 days ago, a majority of which are civilians. Palestinian shelling has killed three civilians in Israel. Fifty-six Israeli soldiers have been killed and 400 wounded in that same time, according toReuters news agency.
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