Netanyahu vows to complete Gaza tunnels destruction
The Israeli military estimated on Wednesday that accomplishing that task, already into its fourth week, would take several more days.
"We are determined to complete this mission, with or without a ceasefire," Netanyahu said in public remarks at the start of a meeting of his full cabinet in Tel Aviv.
"I won’t agree to any proposal that will not enable the Israeli military to finish this important task, for the sake of Israel's security."
Leaving open the option of widening a ground campaign in the Hamas militant-dominated Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said it had called up an additional 16,000 reservists.
A military source said they would relieve a similar number of reserve soldiers being stood down.
Netanyahu's security cabinet on Wednesday approved continuing operations launched on July 8 in response to a surge of cross-border rocket attacks.
US restocks Israel with ammunition
The United States confirmed it had restocked Israel's supplies of ammunition, hours after finally sharpening its tone to condemn an attack on a UN school in Gaza, according to AFP.
Meanwhile, Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip killed seven people, medics said, bringing to 1,364 the Palestinian death toll from a bloody 24-day conflict.
The strikes followed one of the bloodiest days of Israel's campaign against Gaza militants, with more than 100 people killed in a series of strikes and shellfire across the narrow coastal territory.
In two separate incidents on Wednesday, 16 people were killed when shells hit a UN school used for sheltering displaced Gazans, and 17 people died in shelling of a crowded marketplace.
But while both the White House and the State Department condemned the shelling of the UN-run school in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, neither would assign blame to staunch US ally Israel.
"Obviously nothing justifies the killing of innocent civilians seeking shelter in a UN facility," deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf acknowledged, in some of the toughest US comments since the start of the 23-day fighting in the Gaza Strip.
"Innocent Palestinians seeking refuge in these schools should not have shells dropped on them, should not come under attack."
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA said Israeli forces had hit the school, which had been sheltering some 3,300 Gazans.
But despite heated exchanges with reporters, Harf stressed that "we don't know for certain who shelled this school, we need to get all the facts."
National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan also condemned "those responsible for hiding weapons in United Nations facilities in Gaza" and warned of rising fears that thousands of Palestinians who have been told by Israel to leave their homes increasingly had nowhere to go in the blockaded narrow coastal strip.
US officials also warned that patience with "crazy" Israeli criticism of would-be-peacemaker John Kerry had snapped.
The Pentagon confirmed the Israeli military had requested additional ammunition to restock its dwindling supplies on July 20, with the US Defense Department approving the sale just three days later.
"The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to US national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability," Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement.
"This defense sale is consistent with those objectives."
Two of the requested munitions came from a little-known stockpile of ammunition stored by the US military on the ground in Israel for emergency use by the Jewish state. The War Reserve Stockpile Ammunition-Israel is estimated to be worth $1 billion.
The decision to provide ammunition to Israel could fuel controversy, coming just as Washington expresses growing concern about the deaths of more than 1,300 Palestinians, most of them civilians, since the Israeli operation began on July 8.
Kirby said Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel told his Israeli counterpart that the United States was concerned about the deadly consequences of the spiraling conflict, including a "worsening humanitarian situation" in Gaza, and called for a ceasefire and end to hostilities.
He also renewed calls for the disarmament of Gaza's Hamas rulers and "all terrorist groups."
Relations between Israel and its staunch ally the US have plunged in recent days after Kerry returned from a mission to the Middle East to try to broker a ceasefire between the Israelis and Hamas militants.
Anonymous Israeli officials have hit out at Kerry's truce proposal, calling it "a strategic terrorist attack" and criticising it for being a "Hamas wish-list" including moves to lift a long-standing Israeli blockade of Gaza, while failing to address Israel's security concerns, such as Hamas rocket fire and a network of underground tunnels.
Israeli air strikes kill 7
A pre-dawn Israeli air strike killed a man in the central town of Deir al-Balah, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.
He said two mid-morning strikes killed three more, one in the southern city of Rafah and another two in Deir al-Balah, also men.
A strike in the southern city of Khan Yunis killed another three people, Qudra said.
The conflict, which Israel launched from the air and sea on July 8 and then expanded into a ground offensive on July 17, has killed 1,364 Palestinians, most of them civilians.
Fifty-six Israeli soldiers have died in the fighting, and cross-border rocket fire has killed two Israeli civilians and a Thai migrant worker inside Israel.
COMMENTS (32)
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@Mirza: You think the US nation would have existed if the Red Indians were anywhere near as powerful to prevent it? If Hamas is strong enough they will prevail. But the "Free Palestine" slogan is meaningless. There is nothing to free.
@Prognosticator: There never was and there never is anything like the US nation. So based upon your logic they should all be put in a concentration camps. Enough of the killings of women and children without any hope. No matter what the rightwing Jews say the world is not going to put up with the total blockade of millions of Palestinians. Regards, M
@Sudhanshu Swami: what kind of technology is that even american drone has failed there?
@Jawad: Why do you say that the US is "two-faced". They NEVER supported Hamas and they have always supported Israel. That to me is as one-faced as it gets.
@Mirza: " Inmates in a jail dig tunnels to get out not the free people." While that makes good prose, cast your mind back on why they are inmates in the first place. If you are a student of history, you will learn that there was never a nation of Palestine. If they think they can carve out a nation by violence, they are misguided. Israel on the other hand, has to make peace with them and negotiate a settlement. But the intransigence of Hamas makes it very difficult to imagine. Besides, I don't think Israel will EVER give up the lands they won after they were attacked from all sides by the combined Arab armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan.
@S.R.H. Hashmi: well said, Both are same no difference.
@Aseem - "So many muslims being butchered by Pak Army in Waziristan, Any Comments?"
I think its high time that the goons spreading terror in Waziristan is eliminated , I doubt they are muslims in spirit.
@ modified
Why don't we read Astha shastra by Chanakiya and use the tactics learned back on India.
Another excuse of land grab.
Israeli people seem to be putting pressure on Israeli leaders to step up the offensive - that's bad news because they have more clout than any external force including the UN or USA. I suspect Hamas has started something they are going to regret -- they may get kudos from the Palestinian people during the conflict but when things settle down and Palestinians realize how much they lost for so little Hamas reputation will be at an all time low.
@Solomon2 In Gaza only innocents gets killed, and in Waziristan only militants are killed.
Lift the siege and the tunnels would become irrelevant. Inmates in a jail dig tunnels to get out not the free people. Digging tunnels is one of the most difficult tasks and nobody in the free world does it. In the last few years there have been thousands of Palestinians killed by Israel and each time a cease fire without the real solution about occupation and siege has not achieved anything. Stopping the bloodshed is humane but the occupation and siege are the real issue that need to be addressed. The problem is not Muslim or Jew but occupation and suppression.
More than anything else, Muslim world needs "Sadd-Buddhi" ( rationale thinking ). Your actions solely are responsible for the misery through which you people are going. You are killing each other and also getting killed and hated by others world over. Things are likely to get worse if you people don't sit down and think seriously of your own actions. Listen more to people like Hassan Nisar and Prof Pravez Hoodbhoy and not the persons like Fareed Paracha and Hafiz Saeed.
How come we always see pictures of Israeli artillery, Hamas rockets in flight, and casualties in Gaza hospitals, but never see Hamas actually launching rockets or patrolling the streets of Gaza?
@FaiselH: 100 plus muslims butchered in Uighur by China. Any comments? So many muslims being butchered by Pak Army in Waziristan, Any Comments? Shias, Ahmadis and other minorities being butchered in Pakistan. Any comments?
There MUST be some other peaceful way out .
Hamas uses Arab aid money to build tunnels instead of spending it on the welfare of the Palestinian people. Once the tunnel is discovered, it is useless. Some of the tunnels must have taken years to build.
CNN yesterday reported that USA is replenishing Israelis' ammunition supplies so to keep them enable of slaughtering Muslim Palestinian children in hundreds
Where are friends of Hamas? Iran and others have lost their tongues. Hamas's own leadership is also hiding in other countries. After war they will come out from their holes chanting victory.
This conflict can be stopped in a day. Civilians need not die. Hamas has to just stop sending rockets into Israel. Anyway, these rockets don't kill any Israeli. But the response from Israel is swift and strong and has killed thousands. Is this hard to understand?
After Israel's bombardment of United Nations school sheltering Palestinians, killing 19 and injuring 90, the American government officials expressed serious concern over the incident, but soon thereafter started replenishing Israel's stock of ammunition so that it does not have to stop its killing spree because of shortage of ammunition. In this situation, America's strong statements only mean that they are saying to Israel "Look, because of severity of the incident, we are compelled to issue condemnatory statements but don't take them seriously and carry on regardless, fully assured that we, your obedient and faithful servants, will always be at your service and will shelter you at all forums, including the UN Security Council, by vetoing any resolution that we find even mildly critical of you." If the Americans really meant what they said, they would have imposed sanctions on Israel, like they do with everyone else, or at least withheld the supply of ammunition at least temporarily to show their annoyance.
And after Israelis have done the killing and destruction to their hearts' content, the Americans, the great peace-loving people, will move ahead and arrange a ceasefire, while trying to secure disarmament of Hamas as well, but leaving Israel untouched.
And soon thereafter, Israelis will resume grabbing more and more of the Palestinian land through illegal settlements, the barrier wall and demolition of Bedouin villages while also increasing the humiliation and harassment of Palestinians at check posts, leading to another flare up when the same drill will be repeated.
And a few more rounds of this Israeli aggression will bury the two-state solution for ever. A two-state solution is about the only solution that could ensure durable peace between Israelis and Palestinians and even Americans claim to believe that way, and during Barack Obama's first and second terms, formally staged peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, but let Israel scuttle these.
Israelis want all of the land, plus more to accomplish their dream of greater Israel. There were suggestions sometime back that even the non-Jews presently holding Israeli nationality should be stripped of their nationality and pushed to Jordan which, in their view, is already there as a Palestinian state in existence.. Obviously, if the Israelis do not think much of even those non-Jews whom they have granted Israeli nationality, it is not very difficult to imagine what sort of future they would have in mind for people of Mahmoud Abbas's Palestine Authority and those in Gaza. And Americans officials right up to President level, plus nearly the whole of the Western world, have been extremely helpful to Israelis in making their dream come true.
Karachi
@Jawad: United States is not a two faced Hypocrite it's the Muslim world that is multi faced hypocrite.
USA gave them weapons and fulfilled it's promise to ISRAEL. Let's see which Muslim nation fulfill it's GOD bestowed duty of brotherhood by supplying countering weapons to their Muslim Brothers...........Infact if someone does rest of the Muslim leadership (specifically SAUDIS, JORDANIANS, UAE, KUWAIT) will conspire against them.
@csmann:
So do the Palestinians....they have more right to defend themselves as their land have been occupied illegally.....
The United States confirmed it had restocked Israel’s, nothing new america is always back stabbing and trying to show the world its trying to make peace, they have got rid of main people who could have stood against Israel and now its time for middle east to suffer for there own mistakes and miss judgement i cant't say anything more than that unless there is some one who can help these Innocent Palestinians.
USA is a two faced hypocrite
Islamic world must re-stock Hamas with modern weaponry. Hamas must be trained against actual enemy, which in this case is USA who is using Israel committing crime against humanity.
USofA's Imperial Arrogance, and sickening double standards, directed towards the shameless butchery of Muslim Populations, is below human dignity.
Israel has a right to defend itself,but this is way disproportional use of force and very condemnable,
Send those people who killed 8 month old child for blasphemy to kill the Israelis who are slaughtering their fellow Muslims , oh wait , they just kill the fellow 8 month old Pakistanis ! What a courage to kill minorities in your ins country while you look at the barbarism of others directed towards your " uma"