UPDATE 2250 GMT: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and US Secretary of State John Kerry have announced a 72-hour “humanitarian ceasefire”, accepted by both Israel and Gaza, from 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) on Friday.
The two men said in their statement, “Israeli and Palestinian delegations will immediately be going to Cairo for negotiations with the Government of Egypt, at the invitation of Egypt, aimed at reaching a durable ceasefire.”
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri has confirmed the agreement of the Gazan leadership.
See Gaza Video: Top UN Official Breaks Down On-Air Over Israel’s Killing of Civilians
UPDATE 2110 GMT: Gaza’s emergency services say the death toll is now 1,437, with more than 8,100 wounded.
UPDATE 2100 GMT: The White House has edged closer to blame of Israel for Wednesday’s attack on a UN shelter that killed at least 15 people.
Press Secretary Josh Earnest said:
The shelling of a UN facility, that is housing innocent civilian who are fleeing violence, is totally unacceptable and totally indefensible.
It is clear that we need our allies in Israel to do more to live up to the high standards they have set themselves.
The White House spoke after the Israelis said that it was possible that “stray Israeli fire” hit the shelter.
Previously the Israeli military said that it was responding to Hamas fire from near the UN facility.
Earnest said today, “It does not appear there’s a lot of doubt about whose artillery was involved.”
As Israel shifted its position, the head of the UN’s refugee agency said there was no doubt that the Israel Defense Forces was responsible for the attack.
Chris Gunness said the conclusion was made after checking the shooting’s trajectory.
UPDATE 1440 GMT: US Secretary of State John Kerry, visiting India, maintained faith in the ceasefire process despite the dismissal of his plan by Israel last weekend: “The United States remains hopeful that it is achievable, and the sooner the better.”
However, there is no sign of an Israeli change of heart. Writing on his Facebook page, Finance Minister Yair Lapid has repeated the line of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from earlier on Thursday, “First we deal with all the terror tunnels, and only then we can talk about arrangements.”
And Tourism Minister Uzi Landau wants an expansion of operations beyond Israel’s official aim of destroying the tunnels:
The operation should not end until you’ve dismantled the rocket arsenal, damaged the Hamas infrastructure and prevented Hamas from rearming in future.
Hamas is to us what al-Qaeda is to America. You don’t negotiate with them, you hunt them like Obama hunted Osama bin Laden.”
UPDATE 1440 GMT: The US Government is preparing to pay up to $84 million to an American company for Israel’s bombardment of Gaza’s only power plant for electricity.
The plant was knocked out of service on Tuesday after Israeli shelling exploded a fuel depot in the complex.
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation insured the company for political risk, including “war, civil strife, coups, and terrorism”.
An OPIC spokesman confirmed the American investor in the plant — probably Morganti Development LLC, a Delaware-based corporation — had contacted it soon after the Israeli bombardment, although it has not yet made a claim.
UPDATE 0940 GMT: The UN High Commission for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has reinforced the criticism of Israel’s military operations, with attacks on homes, schools, hospitals, and UN facilities:
None of this appears to me to be accidental. There appears to be deliberate defiance of obligations that international law imposes on Israel.
Pillay also denounced the US for aiding the Israeli assault:
Many of my remarks have been directed to the United States since they are a party with influence over Israel to do much more to stop the killing, to bring the parties to the negotiating table….
They have not only provided the heavy weaponry which is now being used by Israel in Gaza but they’ve also provided almost $1 billion in providing the ‘Iron Domes’ to protect the Israelis from rocket attacks. But no such protection has been provided to Gazans against the shelling.
The UN official said Hamas should bear responsibility for placing and firing rockets within heavily populated areas — this, like Israel’s attacks, were “a violation of international humanitarian law, therefore a war crime”.
UPDATE 0930 GMT: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has restated that military operations will continue.
“We are determined to complete this mission with or without a cease-fire,” Netanyahu said before the start of a Cabinet meeting on Thursday morning. “I won’t agree to any proposal that will not enable the Israeli military to complete this important task for the sake of Israel’s security.”
Netanyahu insisted the Israel Defense Force is “moral like no other army”, facing “an enemy that is cruel like no other”.
The United Nations has condemned the latest escalation in Israel’s attacks in Gaza, including the deadly shelling of a UN shelter and a market, as the Gazan death toll nears that of the 2008-2009 war.
The Gazan Health Ministry said last night that 1,364 people have been killed — including 315 children and 166 women — and almost 6,800 wounded since July 8 by the Israeli shelling and airstrikes.
An estimated 1,391 Gazans died in the 22 days of Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead”, which began on December 27, 2008.
Among the casualties on Wednesday were 15 people killed and 200 injured in a market in Shaja’ia, east of Gaza City, and 19 killed and more than 90 wounded in a school converted to a shelter in Jabaliya.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said, in his harshest criticism of Israel to date, “Nothing is more shameful than attacking sleeping children….All available evidence points to Israeli artillery as the cause.”
Israel said it was responding to Hamas mortars from near the shelter; however, Ban and other UN officials made no reference to this. Instead, they noted that the Israeli military had been told 17 times of the shelter’s coordinates to avoid an attack on some of the more than 200,000 Gazans who have fled their homes during the conflict.
Chris Gunness, the spokesman for the UN’s refugee agency UNRWA, said:
We have visited the site and gathered evidence. We have analysed fragments, examined craters and other damage. Our initial assessment is that it was Israeli artillery that hit our school, in which 3,300 people had sought refuge.
I condemn in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces. I call on the international community to take deliberate international political action to put an immediate end to the continuing carnage.
The US Government did not directly blame Israel; however, it implied Israeli responsibility in the incident.
The United States condemns the shelling of a UNRWA school in Gaza, which reportedly killed and injured innocent Palestinians –– including children –– and UN humanitarian workers. We are extremely concerned that thousands of internally displaced Palestinians who have been called on by the Israeli military to evacuate their homes are not safe in UN designated shelters in Gaza.
In Shaja’ia, where almost 100 people were killed last week by a 12-hour Israeli bombardment, the market was hit by a series of strikes. Video showed victims as they were dying (Warning — Graphic Images):
Three Israeli soldiers were killed in a booby-trooped building near a tunnel in Khan Yunis, bringing the total to 56 since the ground invasion began on July 17.
Two Israeli civilians and a Thai foreign worker have died from Gazan rocket fire.
In Cairo, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are reportedly on the verge of joining discussions seeking a halt to the fighting, but there was no apparent advance in discussions on Wednesday.
Instead, the Israeli Cabinet said after a five-hour meeting last night that it had instructed the Israel Defense Force to continue to “forcefully hit Hamas and the other terrorist organizations in Gaza”.
Another 16,000 Israeli reservists were called up, bringing the total deployment to 86,000.
Despite US unease at the latest attacks, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel assured Israeli counterpart Moshe Ya’alon of “the United States’ support for Israel’s security and its right to defend itself”.
Hagel “also expressed the United States’ continued concern about the rising number of Palestinian civilian deaths and loss of Israeli lives, as well as the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza,” according to a Defense Department statement.
