Thirty Injured in Gaza Attack During Humanitarian Cease-Fire
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David Silverman/Getty Images(GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip) — Israeli forces struck a Gaza beach camp after the start of a seven-hour “temporary humanitarian window” Monday, with the attack injuring 30 relatives, the Palestinian health ministry said.
The strike happened at Al-Shata Refugee Camp in west Gaza City, ABC News has learned. That’s far from Rafah, in southern Gaza, which has been the scene of particularly heavy fighting and strikes the past few days.
Israel’s self-declared truce — which Hamas has not agreed to — does not include areas where its soldiers were already operating.
As air strikes intensified Sunday, Israel scaled back ground troops from some areas in Gaza where the fighting has been most intense.
Meanwhile, an Israeli shell reportedly struck near a United Nations sponsored school holding Palestinians seeking shelter, killing 10 people. It was the second such deadly incident in less than a week and was condemned by the U.S. State Department and the U.N.
Israel, which said it would investigate the shelling, nevertheless stressed that the troop pullback to its border does not represent an end to its four-week long mission, suggesting other strategies would be employed to weaken Hamas’s ability to attack the Jewish state through rockets and secret tunnels.
As it happens, the government said that it would not send a delegation to ceasefire talks in Cairo where Hamas and Palestinians had arrived over the weekend.
In spite of pleas from President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to end hostilities, Israel is dealing with the threat from Hamas in its own way.
A 72-hour truce that started last Friday was shattered within hours by a militant ambush of Israeli soldiers inside a tunnel, leading to the deaths of two soldiers and the presumed abduction of another.
Israel confirmed later that the third soldier had been killed.
To date, the death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is approaching 1,800 while more than 60 Israeli soldiers have died.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said there would be no retreat from Gaza until the goal of returning “quiet to Israel” was accomplished, adding, Hamas “will pay an intolerable price” if it keeps firing rockets.
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