(Reuters) – Israel claimed that Palestinian militants fired rockets from Gaza on Tuesday in violation of a truce, attacks that swiftly drew air strikes and the recall of Israeli negotiators from talks in Cairo on a long-term ceasefire. On the other hand, Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas, the dominant movement in the Gaza Strip, said it had no knowledge of any rockets being fired. Witnesses said Israeli aircraft carried out at least 25 strikes, and hospital officials reported that five Palestinians, two of them children, were wounded. The attacks spurred a new exodus of dozens of Palestinian families who had fled previous fighting and returned home only days ago. Nevertheless, the Palestinians want Egypt and Israel to lift their blockades of the economically-crippled Gaza Strip that predated the Israeli offensive launched on July 8 after a surge in cross-border rocket fire by Hamas. The Palestinian Health Ministry put the Gaza death toll at 2,016 and said most were civilians in the small, densely populated coastal territory. Israel has said it killed hundreds of Gaza gunmen in the fighting. Sixty-four Israeli soldiers and three civilians in Israel have been killed. Before the latest flareup, Azzam al-Ahmad, senior leader of President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, said there had been “no progress on any point” in the negotiations, in which Israel has said ensuring its security was its paramount concern. Read more!
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 18:02:04 +0000
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