Israeli airstrikes continued and tanks plowed through Palestinian neighborhoods in Gaza on Thursday with no clear sign of progress in international efforts to broker a truce.
Hamas militants stood by their demand that Israel and Egypt lift the economic blockade of the seaside strip that borders both nations before they would lay down their arms. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed resolve that the fighting would go on until Israel accomplishes more of its military goal to destroy Hamas rocket caches and border tunnels used to infiltrate Israel.
“The terrorists are firing rockets from schools, from mosques, from hospitals, from heavily civilian populations,” Netanyahu said as he welcomed British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond. “We have to try and are doing our best to minimize civilian casualties. But we cannot give our attackers immunity or impunity.”
Hammond was the latest in a series of international envoys seeking an end to fighting that began July 8 and has killed 32 Israeli soldiers and two civilians, a Thai guest worker and more than 700 Palestinians, most of them civilians.
Militants have launched more than 2,000 rockets toward Israel in the renewed fighting, which was stoked by the kidnap-murder of three Israeli teenagers and the apparent revenge killing of a Palestinian teen.
Netanyahu did not mention truce efforts in his brief remarks Thursday, which followed the lifting of the U.S. ban on commercial air travel to Israel because of the danger of rocket fire.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry remained nearby in Cairo, where he spoke by phone with Netanyahu and Arab and Muslim diplomats who may hold influence over Hamas. There were no immediate plans for Kerry to return to Israel.
The Federal Aviation Administration lifted its ban on flights to and from Israel late on Wednesday. The stoppage had upset ordinary Israelis and was bad news for their small, image-conscious country, whose economy relies on international trade and tourism.
Kerry met in Israel on Wednesday with Netanyahu, who was angry about the FAA action and suspicious that it was an attempt by the Obama administration to squeeze Israel to end its Gaza campaign.
But there were signs that the fighting would get worse before it ends. While visiting troops preparing to enter the Gaza Strip, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon signaled that Israel would broaden its air and ground offensive beyond finding and destroying Hamas rockets and tunnels.
“We are preparing the next stages of the fighting after dealing with the tunnels, and you need to be ready for any mission,” Yaalon told the soldiers. “You need to be ready for more important steps in Gaza, and the units that are now on standby need to prepare to go in.”
The top Hamas leader, Khaled Meshal, said his Islamist militant group, which controls the Gaza Strip but is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States, will not sign any lasting cease-fire until Israel lifts its blockade of goods and frees Hamas prisoners.
“From Day One people told us, agree to a cease-fire and then negotiate on your demands,” Meshal said at a news conference in Qatar, where Hamas maintains offices. “We reject this, and we reject it again tonight.”
But Meshal did signal that a temporary “humanitarian truce” could still be possible.
U.S. officials are barred from direct meetings or negotiations with the militants.
Two senior State Department officials, who described Kerry’s discussions on the condition of anonymity, said the goal now is something that stops the fighting and opens the door for additional negotiations. Kerry returned to Cairo on Wednesday night.
The heavy Israeli bombardment continued Wednesday along a broad front line that stretched the length of the Gaza Strip. As of Wednesday, the Palestinian death toll included at least 166 children and 67 women, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Israel says that one of its soldiers is still missing and believed dead. Hamas says it has captured the Israeli but has shown images only of his identification card, not of a body or prisoner.
On Wednesday, the funeral for an Israeli soldier who is also a U.S. citizen was attended by tens of thousand of mourners at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, Israel’s version of Arlington National Cemetery.
Max Steinberg, 24, who grew up in Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley and adored reggae great Bob Marley, was one of thousands of “lone soldiers” who have left their families behind elsewhere in the world to fight for the Israel Defense Forces.
Kerry arrived in Tel Aviv early Wednesday aboard a U.S. Air Force jet not bound by the FAA ban on travel to Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport.
The cessation of flights by U.S. and European carriers was a blow to Israel, which presents itself as a safe and secure place to visit and invest, no matter the chaos, revolution and war that beset its immediate neighbors.
At an emergency meeting in Geneva, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said both Hamas and Israel should be investigated in connection with attacks on civilian targets.
“There seems to be a strong possibility that international law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes,” she said, citing as an example Israeli airstrikes this week against al-Aqsa Hospital in the Gaza Strip.
She also said that Hamas was firing rockets from heavily populated areas in Gaza and targeting civilian centers in Israel. Israel says that Hamas employs human shields and is responsible for the deaths of civilians.
The U.N. human rights commission voted to launch an investigation of Israel. Netanyahu’s office blasted the decision as “a travesty,” argued that it is Hamas that should be condemned and said the Israeli military “has gone to unprecedented lengths to keep Palestinian civilians out of harm’s way, including by dropping leaflets, making phone calls and sending text messages.”
Kerry claimed unspecified progress Wednesday toward a goal of ending a conflict that is drawing rising international criticism of Israel, and by extension Washington, Israel’s most stalwart ally and defender.
“We have certainly made some steps forward,” Kerry said. “There is still work to be done.”
The complex diplomacy will require agreement between Israel and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is trying to mediate the crisis on behalf of Hamas, after the bitter collapse of U.S.-brokered peace talks in April.
As leader of all the Palestinians, Abbas is in a difficult position. He has been belittled by Israel and called an Israeli collaborator by Hamas supporters in Gaza. The United States hopes to somehow strengthen his hand.
Source- The Washington Post
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