The conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza showed no sign of respite Monday, the 14th day of the Israeli offensive on the Palestinian enclave, following its bloodiest day despite calls from the international community to the truce .
On Monday, a hospital in the center of the Gaza Strip was hit by an Israeli strike, killing five Palestinians as rescue and injuring several people. Later, eight Palestinians, including 4 children, were killed in an Israeli air strike on the center of Gaza City, said the Palestinian aid.
The latest deaths bring to at least 36 the number of Palestinians killed in a series of Israeli strikes on Monday the Palestinian enclave, said Ashraf al-Qodra, spokesman for the emergency services in Gaza.
The Security Council of the UN called in the night to "immediately cease hostilities" in the Gaza Strip, where more than 500 Palestinians were killed, including more than 140 Sunday since the beginning of the Israeli offensive against the Gaza July 8. Twenty Israelis, including 18 soldiers, were killed. This conflict, the bloodiest since 2009 in Gaza, is the fourth between Hamas and Israel for the army since 2006, the goal is always the same. Breaking capacity of the Islamist movement to reach Israeli territory with rockets and its fighters.
Monday morning, at least nine Palestinians, including four children, were killed in an Israeli air strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The victims all belonged to the same family who resided in the house covered by the attack. The bodies of 16 Palestinians killed in an Israeli air raid were also found Monday in the rubble of a house near Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
On the Israeli side, the localities near the Gaza Strip have been put on alert Monday morning, according to Army Radio, and residents were asked not to leave their homes.
On the diplomatic front, the 15 member countries of the Security Council requested the night, after two hours of closed-door consultations, a "return to the cease-fire in November 2012," between Israel and Hamas and called for "respect for international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians." U.S. President Barack Obama, expressing concern about the "growing number of deaths" in Gaza, said his chief diplomat John Kerry would go to Cairo on Monday and told to find a "cease-fire immediately."
While Israel has intensified its offensive Sunday to neutralize the military capabilities of the Islamist movement Hamas, which controls Gaza, the Secretary General of the UN Ban Ki-moon, on tour in the Middle East urged Israel "do more "to spare civilians. He denounced "horrific action" of the army Chajaïya, a suburb east of Gaza City, where more than 70 Palestinians died Sunday.
Ban Ki-moon must go Monday to Kuwait, the second leg of his tour which should then lead to Cairo, Jerusalem, Ramallah and Amman.
"Crime against humanity"
In a televised address, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who met in Doha with Ban Ki-moon described the bombing Chajaïya "crime against humanity" whose perpetrators must be "prosecuted and punished." Raids against Chajaiya are the deadliest since the war of 2008-2009 in the Palestinian enclave.
"Chejaïya is a civilian area where Hamas has placed its rockets, its tunnels, command centers," justified the army, "it's been days since we warned civilians Chajaya they had to evacuate. Hamas has ordered them to stay, it was Hamas that put them in the crosshairs. "
For the Israeli army, the day of Sunday was also black: with 13 soldiers from the elite Golani brigade killed, the death toll in the military offensive rises to 18, a number not seen since the Lebanon war 2006. army also recorded at least 55 wounded. Two Israeli civilians also died since the start of the Israeli operation "protective border."
The armed wing of Hamas said Sunday night that an Israeli soldier abducted, sparking jubilation in the streets of Gaza City. Kidnapping which was denied by the Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor. Israel has mobilized 53,200 men over 65,000 reservists authorized by the government for the attack on this small strip of land 362 km2 crammed into poverty 1.8 million people, or one population densities the highest in the world.
The new spiral of violence was unleashed after the abduction and murder of three Israeli students in June, awarded by Israel to Hamas, followed by the murder of a young Palestinian in Jerusalem burned.
