Gaza conflict: Israel calls up 16,000 more reservists as US supplies army with ammunition
Israeli call-up comes in face of intense international pressure to curtail operations in Gaza, where more than 100 Palestinians died on Wednesday – but US agrees to provide Israel with new ammunition supplies
Israel mobilised 16,000 additional reservists on Thursday to bolster its forces waging military operations in the Gaza Strip that left more than 100 Palestinians dead in a day.
The call-up came after Washington announced it had agreed to restock Israel’s dwindling supplies of ammunition despite its sharp condemnation of an attack on a United Nations school in Gaza blamed on Israel’s army.
“The army has issued 16,000 additional mobilisation orders to allow troops on the ground to rest, which takes the total number of reservists to 86,000,” an army spokeswoman said.
Israel’s security cabinet, which met for five hours Wednesday, unanimously decided to pursue attacks against Hamas “terrorist targets” and other operations to destroy a network of tunnels used by the Islamist movement between Gaza and Israel, public radio said.
Public radio quoted Major General Sami Turgeman, the senior officer for the Gaza region, as saying that the destruction of militants’ remaining tunnels into Israel could be complete “in a few days”.
More than 100 Palestinians died in the Gaza Strip Wednesday, among them the victims of Israeli fire on a market and the UN school where Palestinians fleeing the fighting had sought refuge.
At least 17 people were killed in the strike on the market in Shejaiya, near Gaza City, as Israel observed a four-hour humanitarian lull in other parts of the crowded coastal strip.
The market strike came hours after Israeli shells slammed into a UN school in Jabaliya refugee camp which was sheltering some 3,300 homeless Gazans, killing 16 and drawing a furious response from the United Nations.
“This morning a UN school sheltering thousands of Palestinian families suffered a reprehensible attack,” UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday on a visit to Costa Rica.
“It is unjustifiable, and demands accountability and justice.”
The attack was also denounced by the White House in a carefully worded statement that avoided mentioning Israel.
“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,” a statement said.
The Pentagon later said it had granted an Israeli request for ammunition, including some from a stockpile stored by the US military on the ground in Israel for emergency use by the Jewish state.
Rights group Amnesty International had urged Washington to halt arms supplies to Israel.
“It is time for the US government to urgently suspend arms transfers to Israel and to push for a UN arms embargo on all parties to the conflict,” it said in a petition to US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Hamas said Wednesday it fired rockets at Tel Aviv and the southern port city of Ashkelon in response to the market and school strikes.