The United Nations Security Council has called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza to allow for urgent aid to reach civilians as the conflict between Israel and Hamas enters its third week.
The 15-member council released a statement this morning calling for the truce during the Muslim Eid festival marking the end of Ramadan.
The council expressed "strong support" for an "immediate and unconditional humanitarian ceasefire", and urged all sides to accept and fully implement the truce.
It voiced "grave concern regarding the deterioration in the situation as a result of the crisis related to Gaza and the loss of civilian lives and casualties."
More than 1,030 Palestinians have died in the fighting as well as 43 Israeli soldiers.
LINK: No Place To Hide For Children Of Gaza War:
www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28513709 &
www.irishexaminer.com/world/video-channel-4s-jon-snow-speaks-about-his-recent-trip-to-gaza-276984.html
www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28513709 &
www.irishexaminer.com/world/video-channel-4s-jon-snow-speaks-about-his-recent-trip-to-gaza-276984.html
Palestinian representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour, expressed disappointment with the statement, saying it fell short of a formal resolution demanding that Israel withdraw its forces from Gaza.
"They should have adopted a resolution a long time ago to condemn this aggression and to call for this aggression to be stopped immediately," said Mr Mansour following the meeting.
"We are disappointed in that sense," he said, adding that the Palestinians would continue pressing the Security Council to move toward a formal binding resolution.
The emergency session came after Israel and Hamas ignored calls for a truce, with Israel pounding Gaza with artillery yesterday after a night of rocket fire from Hamas.
The two sides observed a 12-hour pause on Saturday, allowing Gaza medics to pull bodies from rubble.
The Council said "civilian and humanitarian facilities, including those of the UN, must be respected and protected" following outrage over the Israeli attack on a UN-run school in Gaza this week that left 15 dead.
The Council called on Israel and Hamas to try to reach a ceasefire based on the Egyptian initiative, and applauded US Secretary John Kerry's efforts to broker a deal.
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NEW UPDATE: *Three children were among 10 people killed in fresh Israeli raids across Gaza tonight, according to emergency services.
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NEW UPDATE: *Three children were among 10 people killed in fresh Israeli raids across Gaza tonight, according to emergency services.
Five people, including three children, were killed when a tank shell slammed into a house in the northern town of Jabaliya, spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told AFP
Another person died in a strike on central Gaza, and four more were killed in and around the southern city of Khan Yunis, he added.
Earlier today, exchanges of fire killed eight Palestinian children in a Gaza refugee camp.
The missile that slammed into a public playground in the seafront Shati UN refugee camp also killed at least two other people and wounded another 46, many of them also children, the emergency services said.
The scene at the Shati refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, earlier today.
Tonight’s strikes came as Israel began an intensive bombardment of the battered Palestinian enclave after four soldiers were killed in a mortar attack on southern Israel and a fifth died in fighting in southern Gaza, the army said.
“Over the course of the day, 5 IDF soldiers were killed,” a statement said, indicating that four of them “were killed along the border of the Gaza Strip as a result of mortar fire”.
Their deaths raised to 48 the total number of Israeli soldiers killed since July 17 when troops began the ground phase of a major military operation against Gaza militants.
The overall operation began on July 8, and has so far killed a total of 48 soldiers and three civilians — two Israelis and a Thai farm worker.
More than 1,050 Palestinians have been killed and over 6,200 wounded.
United Nations figures show more than three quarters of the victims were civilians — among them more than 230 children and around 120 women.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged an immediate end to the ongoing violence, saying earlier that the area was in a “critical condition”.
“In the name of humanity, the violence must stop,” he told reporters in New York, after returning from a visit to the region.
Includes reporting from AFP.
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