Death toll climbs to 342 in one of Gaza’s bloodiest days

ISRAEL’s operation against Hamas saw one of its bloodiest days yesterday, with 46 Palestinians killed in Gaza and two Israeli soldiers dying in a clash with militants who infiltrated the Jewish state.

As Israeli warplanes bombarded Gaza from the air, and ground troops pressed an assault on land, the Palestinian death toll rose to 342, with rights groups warning that a growing number of the victims are children.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon was yesterday headed for the region to bolster intense diplomatic efforts aimed at ending 12 days of bloodshed in and around Gaza, even as Israel warned it was ready to intensify its ground assault aimed at destroying a network of crossborder tunnels.

Despite the blistering offensive, Palestinian commandos in central Gaza managed to use one of the tunnels to infiltrate southern Israel, sparking a deadly skirmish in which one militant and two soldiers were killed, the army said.

The soldiers died when the militants fired a machine gun and an anti-tank missile at an army patrol, the army said.

Troops fired back, killing one of the militants, while the others fled back through the tunnel in an operation claimed by Hamas’s military wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, which said 12 militants had been involved.

An Israeli Bedouin was killed when a rocket hit his encampment in southern Israel in an attack which also wounded four of his family, among them two young children, police said.

The deaths raised to five — three soldiers and two civilians — the total number of Israelis killed since July 8, when Israel launched Operation Protective Edge in its deadliest confrontation with Hamas since 2009.

Israel’s chief-of-staff, Lieutenant General Benny Gantz, said the army was “expanding the ground phase of the operation”, warning there would be “moments of hardship”, alluding to the possibility of

Children should ... not be the victims of a conflict for which they have no responsibility

further Israeli casualties.

In a separate incident late on Friday, militants strapped explosives onto a donkey in another attempt to attack troops.

But soldiers spotted the donkey approaching them “suspiciously” and fired at it, causing it to explode, a statement said.

In Gaza, after a relative lull on Friday, violence picked up again, with intensifying tank shelling and air strikes killing 46 people yesterday.

So far 342 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began the operation aimed at halting crossborder rocket fire from Gaza.

Among yesterday’s dead were two six-year-olds and a toddler, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.

The increasing number of chil- dren killed in the conflict is causing a growing outcry, with a joint statement from the NGOs War Child and Defence for Children International saying more children had been killed than militants.

Figures provided by the UN children’s agency, Unicef, indicate that 73 of the victims were under the age of 18.

“Children should be protected from the violence, and they should not be the victims of a conflict for which they have no responsibility,” Unicef’s Catherine Weibel said.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA has opened 44 of its schools to shelter the hordes fleeing the most heavily bombarded areas.

So far, more than 50 000 Gazans have sought sanctuary at UN institutions, the agency said. — AFP