Gaza/Jerusalem: At least five Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes in Gaza on Saturday as the war entered its 47th day following the collapse of a fragile truce, even as Israel’s hawkish foreign minister said that the offensive would continue until “Hamas waves the white flag”.
In an interview with Channel 2, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that the government needs to spell out “a strategic goal” that encompasses “defeating Hamas and bringing it to submission”.
That is a realistic scenario, and it must be a goal,” he emphasised. The two sides resumed hostilities on Tuesday after the collapse of an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire and talks aimed at finding a lasting end to the current fighting. Five members of a Palestinian family were killed in air strikes on a home in central Gaza on Saturday, as Israel continued to bombard the besieged coastal enclave on the 47th day since the start of Operation Protective Edge on July 8.
The strikes took the Palestinian death toll in Gaza to 2,098 with more than 10,550 injured, Gaza medics said. UN agencies have claimed that 70 per cent of those killed in Gaza are civilians, including women and children, amid Israeli claims that the militant factions have been using civilians as “human shields”. The strike this morning hit the home of the Dahrouj family in al-Zawayda neighbourhood in the central Gaza Strip, killing a couple and their three children. Spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Ashraf al-Qudra, said that the rescue workers were able to recover all the five bodies after an Israeli airstrike levelled the home of the Dahrouj family. (PTI)
