12.15 Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said ties with Israel would not return to normal unless the Jewish state ceased its deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip.
“You will first stop this oppression. If not, it is not possible to realise normalisation between Turkey and Israel,” Erdogan said in the central Anatolian city of Yozgat after a dinner breaking the daily Ramadan fast.
Relations between once-regional allies Israel and Turkey hit an all-time low when 10 Turkish activists died in a 2010 maritime assault by Israeli commandos on Gaza-bound ship Mavi Marmara in international waters.
The Israeli assault provoked a sharp response from Ankara, which expelled the Israeli ambassador, demanded a formal apology, compensation for the victims, and an end to the blockade on Gaza.
23.30 President Barack Obama has spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, telling Israel’s leader that the United States is willing to negotiate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
The White House condemned the rocket attacks and said Israel has the right to self-defence. But Obama also urged both sides not to escalate the crisis and to restore calm.
Obama also relayed concerns about a Palestinian-American teenager who was detained and apparently beaten by Israeli authorities.
22.45
22.25 French President Francois Hollande has expressed concern about the deaths in Gaza – a day after telling Israel it should take “all the necessary measures” to protect itself from militants’ rockets.
Hollande, who was criticised by left-wingers in France for stating solidarity with Israel without mentioning Palestinian casualties, spoke with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas today.
President Hollande expressed his concern regarding the situation in Gaza and regretted that the current military operations had caused numerous Palestinian victims,” read a statement released by his office.
“The safety of all civilian populations must be guaranteed and the escalation must end. Everything must be done to restore the 2012 ceasefire.”
21.55 Our Middle East correspondent in Khan Younis, Robert Tait, resports on the mass fatalities from the Israeli air strikes , with the Gaza health ministry claiming the at least 81 killed were non combatants, including nine people simply gathered to watch the World Cup on TV:
Inside the Fun Time Beach café on Gaza's Mediterranean shore, nine friends and siblings gathered around a portable television powered by a generator to watch Argentina take on Holland in the semi finals of the World Cup.
At 11.30pm, half an hour into the match, an Israeli missile blasted through the flimsy roof of the tumbledown structure to scatter the social gathering in bloody mayhem.
The strike killed Mohammed Fawana along with three sets of brothers – Ahmed and Suleiman Astal, 18 and 16, their cousin Musa, also 16, Mohammed and Ibrahim Ganan, 24, and 25, and Hamdi and Ibrahim Sawaleh, 20 and 28.
A third Sawaleh brother, Salim, 23, was still missing on Thursday, with giant earth moving machines upturning huge quantities of sand in a search for his body.
"They had simply come here to watch the match," said Wael Sobih, standing beside a wrecked beach-scape of broken plastic chairs and upturned palm trees. "This is a play area, not a military camp. It was a normal social occasion." Others said the nine often watched football and had been rooting for Argentina. There was no comment on whether any of them belonged to Hamas or other Palestinian militant factions.
20.44 Remember how the Palestinians won a status upgrade at the UN earlier this year? At the time, the recognition of the Palestinian territories as a "non-member state", a step up from its previous status as an "observer entity", seemed more of a symbolic gesture than anything likely to have an impact on the ground.
That may well still ultimately be the case, but it is now coming into play as the Palestinians flex their new legal rights and demand an emergency meeting of parties to the Geneva Conventions.
They were able to accede to the Geneva Conventions and 14 other international treaties and conventions after the UN move.
Today, Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the UN Security Council that the international community was obliged to ensure protection of Palestinian civilians under the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war and occupations.
"Israel has clearly violated and abdicated its responsibility as an occupying power to ensure the safety and well-being of the civilian population under its occupation," he said.
He said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has asked Switzerland - as the depository for Geneva Conventions - to convene a meeting of the parties to the 4th Geneva Convention on the protection of civilian persons in time of war.
If Israel was found to be in violation of the Conventions, it could find itself facing penalties.
19.40 Here's a little more from the emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, where Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that an Israeli-Palestinian war could engulf the entire region. AP reports:
In a moment of drama, Israel's ambassador suddenly played the piercing 15-second siren that warns Israelis to run to bomb shelters to escape rocket attacks to highlight the threat his country faces. Ron Prosor told the council that the Islamic militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, is "intentionally and indiscriminately" threatening 3.5 million Israelis and "no nation, no people and no government could tolerate this."
Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour had no props for his appeal to the council "to stop the bleeding" and revive the Palestinians' "dying hopes" for an end to the conflict and peace with freedom. "I speak on behalf of the suffering and grieving Palestinian people, who are enduring yet another barrage of death, destruction, trauma and terror," he said.
Diplomats said Jordan has circulated a press statement, which is not legally binding, for the Security Council's consideration that would call for a cease-fire.
"It is unacceptable for citizens on both sides to permanently live in fear of the next aerial attack," Mr Ban said.
The UN chief said the threat of an Israeli ground offensive and "an all-out escalation" is preventable only if Hamas stops firing rockets and mortars into Israel.
But in a clear message to Israel he also said "the excessive use of force and endangering of civilian lives are also intolerable."
He noted that 58 Palestinians, mainly civilians, are reported to have been killed and 339 injured, while Israeli attacks have destroyed or damaged some 150 homes and displaced 900 people.
"Once again, Palestinian civilians are caught between Hamas' irresponsibility and Israel's tough response," Ban said.
He said he urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in recent phone conversations "to exercise maximum restraint, show statesmanship and to weigh the risks of further escalation."
"Gaza, and the region as a whole, cannot afford another full-blown war and another fault line," Mr Ban said. "The potential negative spillover elsewhere in the West Bank is also unpredictable in an already tenuous and combustible situation."
19.09 An Egyptian security official has told the local news website Masrawy that three rockets were fired from the northern Sinai into Israel yesterday. With the Sinai peninsula sinking into lawlessness since the toppling of former Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak, it has becoming an increasingly important launchpad for militant attacks on Israel. It is not clear as yet how Israel might respond, but fighting on two fronts would complicate the crisis even further.
18.25 A reminder that the UN Security Council met today on crisis but their deliberations appears to have had little effect on the ground. Ron Prosor, Israel's ambassador, pulled out a mobile phone during the meeting and played a recording of an air-raid siren as he described the difficult circumstances of people living within rocket range. His Palestinian counterpart, Riyad Mansour, decried the Israeli "barrage of death, destruction and terror." Those sirens have since being going off around Tel Aviv, central Israel and the south as darkness falls.
18.13Aerial footage has been released by the military showing the fatal attack on Alaa Abed a-Nabi, a senior officer responsible for Islamic Jihad's rocket operations in Gaza, as well as two others.
17.55 Israeli social media has flooded with reports of a false alarm caused a BBC reporter who was taking a swim in an area where Israeli commandoes thwarted an infiltration attempt earlier earlier this week.
17.40 One Israeli observer reports there has been a particularly heavy volley of rockets out of Gaza that has managed to penetrate the Iron Dome's defences, leading to an explosion in the desert town of Be'er Sheva and reportedly leaving some people injured.
17.25 Inna Lazareva witnesses the operation of the Iron Dome anti-rocket system as it protects the town of Ashkelon, southern Israel, from Gaza's outgoing salvoes:
Shaped like two giant match boxes tilted diagonally towards Gaza, the system comes to life as the wailing of a siren echoes through the nearby loudspeakers.
The iron dome system determines whether the rocket soaring through the sky is likely to land in an open field or crash into a building in a city. In case of the latter, a counter-missile will already have been deployed to intercept it.
Such a process has been repeated several hundreds of times since Monday.
Over 360 rockets have been launched at Israel from Gaza in this time. Of these, the iron dome has intercepted more than 70, including approximately 10 missiles that were fired at Israel’s economic and cultural capital Tel Aviv so far.
The number of interceptions may seem low, but the system is configured in such a way as to only destroy the rockets poised to hit urban or strategically sensitive areas.
Each interception missile fired is priced at $50,000 – as such, the mounting costs are considerable, particularly when the defence budgets are under review, says Arye Sharuz Shalicar, IDF Spokesman.
In the last war with Gaza in November 2012, the iron dome blocked almost 500 rockets – a total cost of $25 million.
17.00 Three days into the conflict, Israel has carried out 780 air strikes on targets across the Gaza Strip and Hamas has fired around 400 rockets at Israeli population centres.
Click on the map below to see a full-screen version of our guide to where the strikes have fallen across both territories.
16.35 Hamas has claimed responsibility for the four rockets fired at Jerusalem.
At least one, possibly both of the rockets not intercepted by the Iron Dome fell in the West Bank, near the Palestinian town of Bituniya.
16.15 Four rockets have been fired on Jerusalem, two of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome.
Reports from Channel 2 television say the Israeli parliament and government offices were shaken by the impact.
16.10 Russian president Vladimir Putin on Thursday called for an end to spiralling violence in Gaza during telephone talks with Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu.
"The Russian side stressed the necessity to as soon as possible stop armed confrontation, which leads to multiple victims among civilians," the Kremlin said after the call between the two leaders.
15.55 US secretary of state John Kerry has broken his silence on the conflict in Israel and Gaza. David Blair reports:
John Kerry described the crisis in Gaza as a “dangerous moment” on Thursday, but refrained from offering to visit the Middle East despite a warning from the United Nations of another “full-blown war”.
During a visit to China, the US secretary of state made his first public comment on the conflict in Gaza, which has claimed at least 75 Palestinian lives since Tuesday. By Thursdsay, Israel had carried out 780 air strikes on targets across the territory and Hamas, the radical Islamist movement, had fired almost 400 rockets at Israeli population centres, including Tel Aviv.
Mr Kerry said that “de-escalating” the crisis was in the interests of both sides, adding that he had spoken by telephone to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority. “We’re already engaged in trying to see if it is possible to bring an end to the violence and find a different way forward,” he said.
But Mr Kerry stressed that “no country can accept rocket fire aimed at civilians and we support completely Israel’s right to defend itself against these vicious attacks.” He added that “de-escalation ultimately is in the interests of all parties, in the interests of the region, in the interests of Israel and the Palestinians.”
15.10 Robert Tait, the Telegraph's Middle East correspondent, is in Khan Younis, where an Israeli strike on a single home killed eight members of same family.
Mohammed Halibi, 47, is pictured inside the house that was left destroyed after an Israeli missile struck a house next door where a member of Hamas is said to have lived. The Hamas member was killed but so were seven other members of his family. Mr Halibi, his wife and four children, had an incredible escape.
15.03 The deputy speaker of Israel's parliament, MK Hilik Bar, writes exclusively for the Telegraph on how his country must not rely on their military might alone in dealing with Hamas:
There appear to be three strategies to deal with Hamas. The first, “let the IDF win,” as the slogan goes: eliminating the entire Hamas leadership. Political, diplomatic, military, local and international. Dismantling Hamas’s “social infrastructure” and fatally wounding its entire apparatus, from its terror bases to its educational and welfare institutions. In this case, the IDF is sure to win. But we, during the process, may lose.
The second option: the carrot and stick approach. That is to say, harsh yet accurate attacks against Hamas on the one hand, while strengthening the moderate, rational Palestinian camp on the other. This would weaken the extremists and Hamas, and allow the moderates to defeat them, because Palestinian society will see the tangible fruits of a diplomatic agreement with Israel. They will see not just the stick, but also the carrot, and that is key.
The third option: Try to push for a political and ideological shift in Hamas, along with the dismantling of their military components, laying down of their weapons, and a retraction of their platform calling for the destruction of Israel. By the end of the process, this may enable the integration of Hamas as a legitimate political party in a future Palestinian state.
An Israeli Merkava tank rolls along the southern Israeli border with the Gaza Strip (AFP/GETTY)
An Israeli soldier flashes the V-sign for "Victory" (AFP/GETTY)
14.39 Despite the high numbers of missiles IDF reports coming into Israel from Gaza (see 13.50), Martin Navias, a missile proliferation expert at King's Centre for Defence Studies, says the Hamas militants are in fact holding back at present:
Israel does not have escalation dominance in this instance and Hamas is exercising firing constraint.
They are controlling the pace of escalation. In this phase a steady rate of fire shows the Hamas capability to disrupt anywhere in the country and the longer this goes on the more disruptive it becomes.
Hamas is holding back a significant proportion of its stockpile.
While Iron Dome has been quite a success, the Israeli arsenal is diminishing more rapidly than the Hamas one and it has been the pattern that Hamas will escalate towards the end.
13.50 Israel's military has issued its own figures, via Twitter, concerning the number of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel over the past three days:
13.14 Israel has now hit 780 targets in Gaza over the course of the three-day aerial assault.
That is already more than the total amount hit in the entire 8-day operation in the last conflict in 2012, underlining the intensity of Israel's Operation Protective Edge.
12.48 The Hamas commander in charge of the group's rocket launches has been killed, according Israel's Channel 2 television.
Ayman Siam, a prominant figure in the Islamist group, was reportedly in the northern Gaza Strip when he was killed.
Siam was in change of determining the targets, timings and intensity of rocket fire, and his death would be a "heavy blow" to Hamas, according to Army Radio, which reported the yet-unconfirmed information.
If confirmed, experts predict an increase in rocket activity from Gaza.
12.24 A German travel has called off all tours through Israel until the end of the month due to the ongoing conflict.
"TUI Germany is reacting to the current situation in Israel and has cancelled all tours in the country until July 31 inclusive," TUI Germany said in a statement. "Holidaymakers who have booked a TUI tour through Israel in the next three weeks will be contacted."
12.06 The civilians killed in a home in Khan Younis, Gaza, last night (see 11.24) were eight members of the family of Odeh Kaware, a commander in the Hamas military wing.
Among the dead were six children.
According to a Buzzfeed report, Israeli military officers described the deaths as a "tragic mistake".
A member of the family reported recieving a warning call - which is within standard procedure for Israeli military strikes on civilian homes believed to serve militant purposes - one minute before the strike.
It is not clear whether this would have allowed the family sufficient time to evacuate, but there are also reports that some members of the family climbed up to the roof in an attempt to act as human shileds.
The missile, launched from an F-16 fighter jet, then collapsed the entire residence.
11.51 More details on the large salvo of missiles from Gaza (see 11.03) - reports now say a volley of 25 rockets targeted Tel Aviv region, eight of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome.
The trail of missile from the Israeli 'Iron Dome' defence system (AFP/GETTY)
11.24 Israeli planes hit a coffee shop in Khan Younis, Gaza, killing six, according to Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra.
Reports suggest those killed were gathered to watch the World Cup semi-final match between Argentina and Holland, with 15 others injured.
An attack on a home in the same city overnight is believed to have killed 10 civilians. The first reports came from the Twitter feed of Hamas's military wing Al Qassam brigades, but were later confirmed by Israeli press:
11.03 A "large salvo" of rockets have just been fired out of Gaza, aiming across southern Israel and north toward Tel Aviv, according to the Times of Israel.
The newspaper reports sirens sounding in several Israeli towns including Rehovot, Yavne and Ramle.
Some appear to have been shot down by Israel's Iron Dome defence system.
10.50 AFP is reporting a strike on a civilian car in Gaza:
Three Palestinians were killed when an Israeli missile slammed into a car in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, an emergency services spokesman told AFP.
The strike targeted a vehicle in the northern town of Jabaliya, Ashraf al-Qudra told AFP, describing it as a "civilian car".
Palestinians run following what police said was an Israeli air strike on a house in Gaza (REUTERS)
10.39 Inna Lazareva reports from in Ashkelon, southern Israel, this morning for the Telegraph:
In Ashkelon's central market, the majority of stalls stand empty and deserted. A fruit and vegetable seller Moti, in his 50s, his voice hoarse from daily shouting, says business is terrible. "There are so few people around- no one comes out, there are only a few customers. It's very bad". "They in Gaza, they are simply dogs for doing what they are doing to us. They don't deserve to live there.", he says.
10.17 Israel's hardline foreign minister Avigdor Liberman has written to his counterparts around the world, warning allies that Israel will "do whatever is necessary to defend our citizens.” He wrote:
Over the past three weeks, the Hamas terror organization has escalated its attack on Israeli civilians, launching nearly 300 rockets at our cities – including Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and other major metropolitan areas — putting millions of Israeli lives at risk.
Families have been forced into shelters, summer camps for children closed, and all normal daily activities have been impacted. This is unacceptable.
Palestinian journalist driving car marked with 'TV' killed in Israeli air strike (DEMOTIX)
09.50 Israel's vaunted 'Iron Dome' missile defence system has now intercepted at least 70 projectiles destined for major population centers.
Currently there are no reports of Israeli deaths, despite over 300 misisles having been launched into Israeli territory from Haza.
09.30 Dramatic video footage from yesterday's Israeli warplane strikes has emerged, as Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, issued a stern condemnation of the aerial assualt as "genocide":
09.24 Egypt has opened its Rafah border crossing to Gaza this morning to receive wounded Palestinians. AFP reports:
Hospitals in north Sinai, which borders Gaza and Israel, have been placed on standby to receive the Palestinians, Egypt's official MENA news agency reported.
The crossing is usually closed, with Egyptian officials citing the tense security situation in Sinai, where the army is battling an Islamist insurgency.
Rafah is Gaza's only border crossing that bypasses Israel, which has hammered the coastal strip in response to Palestinian rocket fire.
Israelis take cover in a stairwell as an air raid siren, warning of incoming rockets, sounds in Tel Aviv (REUTERS)
09.20 Inna Lazareva is in Ashkelon, southern Israel, this morning for the Telegraph:
Ashkelon, southern Israel, appears to continue as normal, despite several rocket sirens heard already this morning. People are loading large shopping trolleys with goods in outdoor shopping malls and sitting outside in cafes, sipping coffees and orange juice.
Right next to the Ashkelon train station, a venue is being prepared for a big wedding - a large white huppa decorated with flowers has been erected and staff are dusting the dozens of tables and chairs, as occasional explosions are heard in the distance.
“The wedding will happen this evening - they will not cancel it”, one of the organisers tells me. “And tomorrow morning, there will be a brit [Jewish circumcision ceremony for baby boys] here too”.
In the city’s Shikma prison, which for 11 years held Israeli nuclear whistle blower Mordechai Vanunu as well as many Palestinian prisoners, the two top floors have been evacuated several days ago. Approximately 200 inmates had to be transferred to other detention facilities, due to fears of rocket fire damage.
09.00 Reports that John Kerry, the US secretary of state, could be on his way to Israel imminently have been played down by the Obama administration.
“But with the crisis escalating just two months after formal US-led peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians collapsed, the White House isn’t preparing to dispatch Mr. Kerry to the region to broker a ceasefire,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
John Kerry has been very active in the region since replacing Hillary Clinton as the US's top diplomat, visiting frequently in an attempt to rekindle the peace process since 2012.
08.42 Inna Lazareva was on the Israeli side of the Gaza border for the Telegraph yesterday in Sderot.
Sderot lies less than a mile from the border, and has the unwanted moniker of the "city of rockets", as residents live in fear of bombardment by missiles from the Palestinian territory:
The children’s playground, with its brightly painted swings and animal-shaped see-saws, was nearly deserted at lunchtime when a ball of fire hurtled across the sky.
Leaving a puffy, winding trail in its wake, the missile briefly mesmerised those who witnessed it before the spell was broken by loudspeakers, which crackled into action.
“Red Alert! Red Alert!” the voice screamed in Hebrew and those few people still in the streets started sprinting towards the nearby air raid shelters.
Inside the thick cement enclosures, faces betrayed the panic that missile attacks by Gaza militants on the town of Sderot in southern Israel have instilled over recent days.
Everyone strained to hear what was happening outside.
Full report: Israel's front line town of Sderot battered by missiles
08.20 David Cameron called Bejamin Natanyahu, Israel's prime minister, last night, offering his support for Israel's right to defend itself and condemning Hamas's "appalling" attacks on Israeli civilians.
A Number 10 spokesperson said in a written statement :
The Prime Minister spoke to Prime Minister Netanyahu earlier this evening about the situation in Israel. The Prime Minister strongly condemned the appalling attacks being carried out by Hamas against Israeli civilians.
The Prime Minister reiterated the UK’s staunch support for Israel in the face of such attacks, and underlined Israel’s right to defend itself from them.
08.00 Robert Tait is in Gaza for the Telegraph. Catch up on his report on yesterday's violence - Israel and Paelstine's bloodiest day for many years - as rockets from Gaza were fired at an Israeli nuclear plant and the threat of a ground invasion continued to grow:
Hamas militants launched a salvo of missiles at Israel's main nuclear facility on Wednesday night, raising the likelihood of an Israeli invasion of the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip.
A trio of rockets were aimed towards the southern Israeli town of Dimona and the nearby Negev nuclear reactor and research centre, where Israel's atomic weapons program is thought to be based.
Two of the rockets fell in open areas and the other was intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defensive shield, with none causing casualties, an Israeli army spokesman said. However, the symbolic aggression of the act may raise expectations that Israel will act on their threats to launch a full-scale ground operation to dismantle Hamas's military infrastructure.
The threat to the nuclear facility came as Gaza saw one of its bloodiest days in recent years, with at least 22 people, including nine children and six women, killed in airstrikes in day two of Israel's Operation Protective Edge.
Full report: Rockets fired at Israeli nuclear plant as threat of invasion rises
07.45 At least one rocket fired from Gaza at Tel Aviv has been intercepted by Israel's 'Iron Dome' missile defence system.
Part of the shrapnel from the rocket landed at a petrol station in Israel's second-largest city:
Rocket fragment that landed in a gas station in Tel Aviv (EMILY WITHER)
07.30 Good morning and welcome to our continued live coverage of the Gaza Strip crisis, as fire continues to be exchanged between Israel and Hamas overnight.
The death toll in the Gaza Strip is now believed to have passed 70, including at least 11 women and 18 children, while some 300 rockets have been fired from the Palestinian enclave into Israel since the Jewish state began Operation Protective Edge.
The towns marked in the below Israel and Gaza maps have came under fire in the 24 hours to yesterday evening:
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/VS31Vp
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