Israel pounds Gaza amid renewed truce efforts
“Israeli forces target multiple sites across Gaza, as US secretary of state arrives in Tel Aviv to pursue ceasefire.”
Israeli forces have pounded multiple sites across the Gaza Strip, including the enclave’s sole power plant, as diplomats intensified efforts to end the bloodshed.
Palestinian emergency services said that at least six people were killed early on Wednesday during prolonged shelling of the southern town of Khan Yunis and 20 more were wounded, most of them seriously.
Wednesday’s deaths bring the number of Palestinians killed during the 16-day Israeli assault on Gaza to 648, including dozens of children. More than 4,000 people have been injured.
The number of Israelis who died in the attack on Gaza has climbed to 31, including 29 soldiers and two civilians. One other soldier remains missing, but is presumed dead, according to the Israeli army.
Adding to the woes of the besieged strip, residents on Wednesday said Israel shelled a power plant which provides electricity to half the population of Gaza.
The power station spokesperson in Gaza told Al Jazeera that the main equipment of the plant was hit last night, adding that now only 10 percent of the people in Gaza received electricity.
Electricity supplies from Israel were cut short last week, after Israel said that rockets from Gaza had damaged the infrastructure.
A rocket fired from Gaza on Tuesday hit Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion international airport prompted major US and European airlines to suspend their flights from and to Israel, a blow to Israel’s economy.
Diplomatic efforts
But US Secretary of State John Kerry flew into Tel Aviv on Wednesday, defying the US flight ban, to try to broker a ceasefire.
He immediately set off for Jerusalem where he was to meet visiting UN chief Ban Ki-moon, after which he was to travel to the West Bank city of Ramallah for talks with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, a State Department official said.
Kerry was in Cairo a day earlier, from where he called on Hamas to accept an Egyptian proposed-ceasefire.
Hamas has so far refused the Egyptian proposal, saying that any peace deal must include a pledge by Israel to open border crossings with Gaza and lifting the siege on the enclave.
The Palestinian faction is also demanding the release of dozens of prisoners who were freed in a 2011 swap for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit but re-arrested this summer.
UN chief Ban Ki Moon on Tuesday urged to both sides to lay down arms.
“Stop fighting, start talking and take on the root causes of the conflict so that we are not at the same situation in the next six months or a year.”
He said Israel must exercise “maximum restraint” in Gaza and described Hamas rocket fire on Israel as “shocking”.