Gaza City: An Israeli airstrike on a Gaza farm killed two Palestinians on Friday, a Gaza health official said, as fighting continued for a third day after the collapse of Egyptian-led cease-fire talks.
The renewed exchanges have dashed hopes for a lasting truce after a monthlong war that has already killed over 2,000 people. By midmorning Friday, Israel had launched about 20 airstrikes at Gaza, while Gaza militants fired two rockets at Israel, the Israeli military said.
Earlier this week, Hamas rejected an Egyptian truce proposal under which Israel would gradually ease its blockade of Gaza, without giving specific commitments. Hamas demands a lifting of the border closure, imposed by Israel and Egypt after the militant group’s takeover of the coastal strip in 2007.
A quick resumption of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas in Cairo seems unlikely, particularly after Israel killed three top Hamas military leaders in an airstrike Thursday.
Responding to the killing of the three, senior Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh said on Thursday that his group would not budge from its demands.
“We will not accept anything less than an end to the (Israeli) aggression and an end to the blockade,” Haniyeh said in a statement posted by the Hamas-affiliated Al Rai news service.
“Anyone involved in cease-fire efforts must understand that our people will not accept anything less than this.”
Since Israel-Hamas fighting erupted on July 8, at least 2,086 Palestinians were killed, according to Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra.
In addition, nearly a quarter of the dead, 469, are children, according to the top UNICEF field officer in Gaza, Pernilla Ironside. Of the more than 10,400 Palestinians wounded, nearly a third are children, according to UNICEF figures, while some 100,000 Gazans have been left homeless.
A senior official of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Thursday that a total of 469 children were killed in the Gaza Strip, where the situation is “dire” because of its debilitating effect on the one million Gaza Strip inhabitants under the age of 18.
“This situation is very dire in terms of the impact and the toll (it) has on children,” Pernille Ironside, chief of Gaza occupied Palestinian territory field office for the UNICEF, was quote as saying by Xinhua at a press conference, days after renewed fighting broke out between Hamas and Israel.
“In the last 48 hours, nine more children have been killed,” she said. “Unfortunately, this brings our (death toll) to 469 children as of this morning.”
The latest round of fighting came shortly after a 24-hour ceasefire extension between Israel and the Palestinian militants announced by the Egyptian government earlier this week.
The impact from fighting has been vast on a physical level because of casualties, injuries and the damage to the Strip’s infrastructure, she said, adding that more importantly, it has had a destabilising emotional and psychological impact on children.
Children are feeling like there isn’t anywhere safe to go, said the UN official, who is a Canadian-born human rights lawyer and child advocate with a year’s experience in Gaza. “Children need to have (a) sense of security.”
“When I am speaking with kids, I’m finding that they are withdrawn from normal interactions with their families. They are having nightmares, wetting their bed, and they won’t let their parents out of their sight.
“They are truly in a state of trauma.” she further added.(AP)
