Operation Protective Edge
Week 4 - 28 July - 03 August 2014
Israeli media reports 28 July 2014 said four Israelis were killed by mortar fire from Gaza. And Israel's defense forces said militants sneaked across the border from Gaza to attack an Israeli village near the border. Israeli media said five militants were killed when they traded fire with Israeli soldiers. The 21-day conflict between Israel and Hamas militants already had killed more than 1,049 people and displaced at least 167,000 Palestinians, the UN's main agency in Gaza said. Most of the Palestinian dead were reported to be civilians. Israel said it had lost 43 soldiers and three civilians. Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor said Hamas had fired 2,500 rockets at Israel.
On the afternoon of July 28, a squad of Gaza terrorists fired a barrage of four rockets from a densely populated area, aiming to kill Israelis. Instead, one hit al-Shifa hospital and another the Shati refugee camp, both inside Gaza. A third was intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system above Ashdod.
Israel's military stepped up its bombardment of the Gaza Strip on 29 July 2014 after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country should be prepared for a long conflict in the Palestinian enclave, quashing any hopes of a swift end to the conflict. Palestinian health officials say attacks from Israeli warplanes and tanks had killed at least 100 people in the most widespread attacks since fighting began three weeks ago.
Gaza officials said 29 July 2014 at least 1,361 Palestinians, including 411 military civilians, had been killed in the battered enclave. The 852 civilian deaths included 249 children and 135 women. Israel has lost 56 soldiers to Gaza clashes and three civilians to Palestinian shelling. Israel lost 53 soldiers, two Israeli civilians and a Thai worker since launching its offensive July 8.
At least 15 Palestinians were killed during an Israeli military strike near a crowded market in Shejaia on 30 July 2014 , Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said. He said 160 people were also wounded. The news came after Israel announced a brief, four-hour cease-fire which began at 1200 GMT (3:00 p.m. local time), and appeared not to last. The Israeli military added that areas where troops were "currently operating" would be exempt. Hamas denounced the pause as having "no value" and continued to fire rockets, saying it would fight on its own terms, not Israel’s. According to the Israeli Defense Force, Hamas fired 26 rockets at Israel, two of which were intercepted above Ashkelon and Netivot. IDF said since midnight 84 rockets had been fired at Israel.
Israeli artillery shells pummeled a United Nations-run school compound where as many as 3,000 had sought shelter. At least 19 people were killed and scores were wounded at the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. The attack on the UN school happened about 5:30 a.m. (0230 GMT) at the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. Hospital officials put the total number of Palestinians killed in the conflict to at least 1,224, most of them civilians. On the Israeli side, 53 soldiers and three civilians had been killed.
Israeli's military issued a statement saying it so far had hit 4,100 targets in Gaza, with a third of them involving Hamas militants' ability to attack Israel with rockets.
Major General Sami Turgeman, chief of Israeli forces in Gaza, said 31 July 2014 that they were “but a few days away from destroying all the attack tunnels.” They have shut down at least 30 to date. Earlier, Israel's military called up an additional 16,000 additional reservists, taking their total to 86,000, as military operations in the Gaza Strip continued. The United Nations reported about 15,000 more Palestinians seeking refuge in its shelters in Gaza. That brought the total to about 250,000 million people – approximately four times what the organization said it had expected.
At least 1,437 people had been killed in the Israeli operation since July 8, and over 8,000 had been injured. By one account, over 80 percent of the Palestinian fatalities have been reportedly civilians, including over 300 children. Israeli military says it has so far lost nearly 60 of its troops in clashes with Palestinian resistance fighters, but Hamas says over 131 Israeli soldiers have been killed over the past 24 days. Israeli media reports say over 140 Israeli soldiers have been hospitalized with combat injuries. This is seen as the heaviest loss of life for the Israeli military in years. Military losses are more than five times those from the last Gaza ground war, in 2008-2009, but Israeli opinion polls show strong public support for fighting on until Hamas is quelled.
Despite having a fertile soil, Gazan farmers could not access their farms, resulting in the shortage of fruits and vegetables. The food supply had not been seriously disrupted, with new items coming from Israel through the crossing at Khan Younis, a town on the Gaza Strip's southern edge. Despite international outcries, Cairo kept the Rafah border crossing closed. The 12-kilometer crossing links Egypt to the Gaza Strip.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon announced a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza beginning on Friday. Israel declared the 72-hour cease-fire over about 90 minutes after it began, saying Hamas militants attacked two Israeli soldiers looking for tunnels in Gaza, killling two and reportedly abducting another one of them. Shortly after the attack, the Israeli military resumed shelling the southern Gaza Strip, killing at least 40 people, according to various reports. Hamas resumed firing rockets into southern Israel. The Obama administration condemned the Hamas attack on Israeli soldiers in Gaza as a violation of the newly reached humanitarian cease-fire and called for the release of 2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin, 23, the Israeli soldier allegedly held hostage.
Hamas officials said they never agreed to allow Israeli troops to stay on Palestinian territory. Israel said its soldiers would abide by a truce only in areas where it was "not operating".
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the new death toll stood at no less than 1,437 people, while 23 percent of those killed so far weren children and 12 percent women. On Thursday, 79 Palestinians were killed and 350 injured, health ministry spokesman al-Qidra said in a statement. The toll of those injured stood at 8,265 people, 30 percent of whom have been children, 20 percent women, and 4 percent the elderly. Twenty-nine medical facilities including thirteen hospitals had been damaged by Israeli attacks, the ministry said.
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah broke his silence over the three-week-old conflict in Gaza, condemning what he saw as international silence over Israel's offensive and describing this as a war crime and 'state-sponsored terrorism'."
The armed wing of Hamas said 02 August 2014 it did not know the whereabouts of an Israeli solider that Israel has accused it of abducting, but speculated that he was likely killed in an Israeli strike. The group said it had lost contact with its fighters in the southern Gaza Strip where Israel says the soldier was abducted. Hamas said it believed all members of its group in the southern Gaza Strip have died in an Israeli strike along with the Israeli soldier.
Hamas continued to insist on a complete end to the economic blockade before it will consider a formal, official cease-fire. And Israel insisted on the demilitarization of Gaza before it will consider lifting any blockade. So at the moment, there is no cease-fire. Israel said it would not send its negotiators to Cairo for planned talks with the Palestinians, a day after accusing Hamas of violating what was supposed to be a 72-hour cease-fire. Israeli cabinet minister Yuval Steinitz accused Hamas of violating previous cease-fire agreements, which "leads us to the conclusion that with this organization there is no point speaking,"
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Jewish state "will continue doing everything" to bring the missing soldier home. He promised Israeli ctizens the military would "bring back calm and order ... no matter how much time" and effort it would take. He thanked them for "resiliance and unity." Netanyahu thanked United States and European leaders for their support, which he said "strengthens our demand to link the restoration and rebuilding of Gaza Strip with disarmament." He specifically praised US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry for defending Israel's "right to destroy missiles and tunnels".
Since Israel began its offensive July 8 to halt rockets fired by Hamas and other militants, more than than 1,650 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed, Gaza health officials said. Israel has lost 63 soldiers and three civilians - a greater toll than in its 2006 war with Lebanon. The death toll includes at least 296 Palestinian youngsters, the United Nations said Saturday. UN children's agency UNICEF has counted 187 boys and 109 girls killed, with at least 203 under age 12. An estimated 400,000 Palestinians were displaced by the conflict.
On 03 August 2014 Palestinian factions agreed on a document that included four conditions for ceasefire. The delegation, which included representatives of both Fatah and Hamas, demanded the immediately halt to fighting in Gaza, withdrawal of Israeli troops from the coastal enclave, lifting of the siege on Gaza and the reopening of all border crossings to ensure the free movement of goods and people into Gaza.
An air strike launched on 03 August 2014 by the IDF killed at least 10 people and injured 35 others in a UN school in the town of Rafah, southern Gaza, medics said. The missile struck the entrance of the school. The Israeli military has admitted that IDF "targeted three Islamic Jihad terrorists on board a motorcycle in the vicinity of an UNRWA school in Rafah" and added it was "reviewing the consequences of this strike."
The Palestinian Health Ministry said casualties have reached 1,830 killed and 9,370 wounded so far in Gaza since Israel launched its offensive almost a month ago. The dead include 398 children, 207 women and 74 elderly people. At least 8,900 were wounded in IDF shelling from the air, land, and sea. Furthermore UNRWA estimated that up to 25 percent of Gaza's population of 1.8 million are now displaced. Israel said that fighting with Hamas already took the lives of 63 soldiers, while another three civilians died from Hamas rockets. The army announced on Sunday morning that 2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin was dead.
The Israeli government started to insist that any deal disarm Hamas, as a first step towards pushing it out of power in Gaza. Tzipi Livni, the justice minister, said on that there would be no talk with Hamas about lifting the blockade, and that Israel’s goal should be to "replace" it. "It can come through international agreements that talk about demilitarization, and the entrance of Abu Mazen to Gaza," she said, referring to Abbas by his nickname. "We have the opportunity for a political change, not with Hamas but against Hamas."
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