Gaza City – 140 Palestinians Killed, As Israel Pushes Deeper In Gaza After Soldier Seized

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    Israeli soldiers ride their army vehicles on the Israeli side of the border of the southern Gaza Strip August 1, 2014. ReutersGaza City – Backed by tank fire and airstrikes, Israeli forces pushed deep into southern Gaza on Friday, searching for an Israeli army officer believed to be captured by Hamas fighters during deadly clashes that shattered an internationally brokered cease-fire.

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    The apparent capture of the soldier and the collapse of the truce set the stage for a possible expansion of Israel’s 25-day-old military operation against Hamas.

    The search for the missing soldier centered on the outskirts of the town of Rafah, on the Egypt-Gaza border.

    At least 140 Palestinians were killed Friday in Gaza, with at least 70 killed in the Rafah area along with two Israeli soldiers.

    The fighting in the Rafah area continued into the night, with residents reporting airstrikes along the Egypt-Gaza frontier as well as heavy tank and artillery shelling. The Israeli military said it was searching for the missing soldier and had sent automated calls or text messages to Rafah residents to stay indoors.

    “We are under fire, every minute or so tanks fire shells at us,” said Rafah resident Ayman Al-Arja. “I have been thinking of leaving since 2 p.m., but tank fire can reach anywhere, and I was scared they will hit my pickup truck. Now we are sitting in the stairwell, 11 members of my family, my brother, his nine children and wife. We just have water to drink and the radio to hear the news.”

    The 45-year-old Al-Arja added: “We are just staying put waiting for God’s mercy.”

    The heavy shelling in Rafah was part of operational and intelligence activity to locate the missing officer, 2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin, the Israeli military said.

    Israel has gone to great lengths in the past to get back its captured soldiers. In 2011, it traded hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli soldier who had been captured by Hamas-allied militants in 2006. The capture of two soldiers in a cross-border operation by Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas in 2006 sparked a 34-day war between the Iranian-backed Shiite group and Israel.
    Israeli soldiers walk on an Israeli Navy vessel at the entrance to Ashdod port in the Mediterranean sea August 1, 2014.  Reuters
    A Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, would neither confirm nor deny the capture, saying the event was being used — along with the killing of two Israeli soldiers in the Rafah area — as a cover for what he called a “massacre” in Rafah.
    An Israeli soldier carries a shell at a mobile artillery unit while it fires towards the Gaza Strip August 1, 2014. Reuters
    The violence killed at least 70 Palestinians and wounded 440 in the Rafah area, according to Gaza Health Ministry official Ashraf al-Kidra. The dead included paramedic Assef al-Zamily, killed when an Israeli tank shell hit an ambulance in which he was riding, al-Kidra said.

    Another 70 Palestinians were killed elsewhere in Gaza on Friday, according to al-Kidra.

    The shelling in Rafah sent families fleeing from apartment blocks. One woman carrying two children rushed toward a parked car, yelling to a bystander, “Quick, open the car door!”

    Ambulances ferried the wounded to al-Najar hospital, where family members frantically searched for loved ones among the bloodied bodies on stretchers. Many of the wounded were children. In one room, four children were treated on a single bed, while others were examined on the floor.
    A Palestinian man carries an injured child to Al Najar hospital after Israeli air strikes in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, 01 August 2014.  Reuters
    Bassem Abul Qumbus found that his three-story home — in which he had invested tens of thousands of dollars – had been shattered. Shells had punched a hole in the ceiling of one bedroom and a wall had collapsed into the kitchen.

    “The work of all those years is gone,” he said as he struggled to salvage flour from bags that had been torn apart by shrapnel.

    In the southern town of Khan Younis, residents searched for bodies amid destroyed homes. Rescuers and volunteers used makeshift stretchers to carry away corpses, some badly burned.

    Nidal Abu Rjeila found the body of his disabled sister on the side of the road, her wheelchair flipped upside down. He said her body had been there for five days.

    “I tried to reach human rights groups and the Red Cross, but no one was answering me,” he said, overcome by grief.

    A religious Israeli reserve soldier recites evening prayers near APCs (Armoured Personnel Carriers) inside southern Israel very close to the Gaza Strip border, near the area of Rafiah where, earlier in the day, 01 August 2014

    Palestinian medics dig out a body found under the rubble of a destroyed house after Israeli air strikes in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, 01 August 2014. Reuters


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    7 Comments
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    Anominous
    Anominous
    9 years ago

    Why don’t they say how many were Hamas fighters and how many were civilians and how many “shields”? It would make a big difference in understanding the conflict.

    9 years ago

    Hashem be with our boys this Shabbos.

    TexasJew
    TexasJew
    9 years ago

    Kill as many as you have to in order to get our soldier back. FINISH the job.

    9 years ago

    Give back the soldier, stop launching rockets, stop making terror tunnels, stop killing Jews and they will live in peace.

    sane
    sane
    9 years ago

    Finish the job Bibi. You’ve come this far. They got to run out of arms at some point.

    Granny
    Granny
    9 years ago

    How do you define civilians? These “non combatants” who aid the active militants, helping them hide, giving them all sorts of support, are not civilians in the usual sense. These people are not captives of Hamas, they voted for them, they wanted them, and even now they say, as terrible as it is it’s worth it to be rid of the Jews. These people are just idiots. All these so-called civilians, if the did the same sort of actions for an ordinary crime, like robbing a bank, they’d be put on trial as accomplices for aiding and abetting.
    And the children? Of course it’s hard to look at children bleeding and injured, but if there is a chance that one Jew can be saved at the expense of 10,000 of their children, then there is no comparison. Most of these kids have been so brainwashed already, they’re like terrorists in training.