GAZA/OCCUPIED JERUSALEM/ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue fighting against Gaza after US
President Joe Biden urged him to seek a “de-escalation” on Wednesday in the
10-day conflict on the path to a ceasefire.
اضافة اعلان
An Egyptian security source said the two sides had agreed in
principle to a ceasefire after help from mediators, although details were still
being negotiated in secret amid public denials of a deal to prevent it from
collapsing.
Palestinian health officials said that since fighting began
on May 10, 227 people had been killed in aerial bombardments that have worsened
an already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Israeli authorities put the death toll at 12 in Israel,
where repeated rocket attacks have caused panic and sent people rushing into
shelters.
Regional and US-led diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire
have intensified but so far failed, and cross-border fire continued in the
hours after Biden’s latest call for calm.
Netanyahu has repeatedly hailed what he has described as
support from the United States, Israel’s main ally, for a right to self-defense
in battling rocket attacks from Gaza’s ruling Hamas Islamists and other groups.
But Biden put the Israeli leader on notice in a telephone
call that it was time to lower the intensity of the conflict.
“The president conveyed to the prime minister that he
expected a significant de-escalation today on the path to a ceasefire,” White
House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.
‘Quiet and security’
In a statement released soon after her comments, Netanyahu
said: “I am determined to continue this operation until its objective is
achieved — to restore quiet and security to you, the citizens of Israel.”
Netanyahu had earlier told a meeting with foreign envoys to
Israel that “it is not possible to set a timeframe” for the operations, Israeli
media reported.
In response to Biden’s de-escalation call, Hamas spokesman
Hazem Qassam said those who sought to restore calm must “compel Israel to end
its aggression in Jerusalem and its bombardment of Gaza”.
Once that happened, Qassam said, “there can be room to talk
about arrangements to restore calm”.
With Gaza rocket fire continuing into Wednesday night, a
72-year-old man was moderately injured when a rocket struck his house in the
southern Israeli city of Sderot, medics said.
In Gaza, the sounds of explosions
roared at nightfall with heavy bombardments reported in the enclave's center
and south.
Hamas began firing rockets on May 10
in retaliation for what it said were Israeli rights abuses against Palestinians
in occupied Jerusalem during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The rocket attacks followed Israeli
occupation forces’ clashes with worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram
Al-Sharif in Jerusalem and a court case by Israeli settlers to evict
Palestinians from a neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem.
In a 25-minute attack overnight into
Wednesday, Israel bombarded targets including what its military said were
tunnels in southern Gaza used by Hamas.
Some 50 rockets were fired from the
enclave, the Israeli military said, with sirens sounding in the coastal city of
Ashdod, south of Tel Aviv, and other areas.
Around 4,000 rockets have been fired
from Gaza since May 10, most of which have been intercepted by missile
defenses, the Israeli military said. Some 600 fell in Gaza, it said.
Craters and rubble
Nearly 450 buildings in densely
populated Gaza have been destroyed or badly damaged, including six hospitals
and nine primary-care health centers, and more than 52,000 Palestinians have
been displaced, the UN humanitarian agency said.
"Whoever wants to learn about
the humanity of the [Israelis] should come to the Gaza Strip and look at the
houses that got destroyed on top of those who lived in them," said
university lecturer Ahmed Al-Astal, standing by the rubble of his house in Khan
Younis in southern Gaza.
He said there had been no warning
before his home was destroyed in an air strike before dawn.
The hostilities are the most serious
between Hamas and Israel in years, and, in a departure from previous Gaza
conflicts, have helped fuel street violence in Israeli cities between Jews and Arabs.
The conflict has also spilled over
to the Israel-Lebanon frontier and stoked violence in the occupied West Bank.
Four rockets were launched towards
Israel from Lebanon on Wednesday, the third such incident since the Gaza
conflict began, the military said. There was no claim of responsibility.
In the West Bank, Israeli troops
shot dead a Palestinian woman who the military claimed had fired a rifle at
troops and civilians. At least 21 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with
Israeli troops or other incidents in the West Bank since May 10, Palestinian
officials said.
The latest deaths in
Gaza included
three Palestinians killed in overnight air strikes, one of them a journalist
with Hamas'
Al-Aqsa radio station, officials said.
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