For the second time in two days, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that international pressure will not halt airstrikes on Gaza.
In another televised speech, Netanyahu said operations will end only when “quiet is restored to Israel”: “No international pressure will prevent us from acting with all power.”
The death toll in Gaza from the airstrikes, which began on Tuesday, reached 107 with at least 600 wounded. Most of the casualties are civilians.
At least 17 Gazans were killed on Friday, including five who were slain in a single airstrike in Rafah which wounded 15 others.
Netanyahu and Israel Defense Forces chief Benny Gantz continued to insist that the Gazan leadership Hamas is responsible for the deaths, claiming it hides military operations behind civilians.
Gantz said the military “remembers there are citizens there” and accused Hamas of “turning them into hostages”.
However, the United Nations head for human rights, Navi Pillay, said on Friday:
We have received deeply disturbing reports that many of the civilian casualties, including of children, occurred as a result of strikes on homes. Such reports raise serious doubt about whether the Israeli strikes have been in accordance with international humanitarian law and international human rights law.
Physicians at Gaza City’s Al Shifa Hospital said about two-thirds of the patients injured in the Israeli attacks were children.
The Israeli military said on Friday that it had struck 1,002 sites in Gaza, in response to 426 rockets that hit Israeli soil since Tuesday. Another 121 rockets were intercepted by the country’s Iron Dome missile-defence system, the IDF said.
Five Israelis have been injured by rockets fired from Gaza. One of those wounded is in critical condition.
Meanwhile, Hamas leaders said that the Israeli attacks would not break the “unity” agreement reached with long-time Palestinian rival Fatah in April.
Referring to detentions of hundreds of Palestinians last month after the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers, a Hamas official said, “When Israel attacked our people in the West Bank we could not remain silent. We had to show we’re one people and one nation and must protect our people.”
Soon after the agreement, Netanyahu broke off talks with the Palestinian Authority.
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas chided the Israeli Prime Minister on Friday, “The only solution to the current crisis is a diplomatic one, but I don’t have a partner for a two-state solution.”
