News desk :Gaza resident Sawla el Tibi told the BBC it was too dangerous to leave her home. “[There is] no safety at all to walk on the street… all of Gaza Strip is burning right now,” she said.The Palestinian Authority’s envoy to the EU, Leila Shahid, accused Israel of “state terrorism”.She said: “This is the third time the Israeli army has launched a unilateral war against the population of Gaza. [It] pretends that it is only bombarding sites where rockets are launched from Gaza, and ultimately the ones who pay the bill are women, families and children.”Germany was sending Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to Israel on Monday for talks with Israelis and Palestinians to help negotiate an end to the violence.The UN Security Council has called for a ceasefire and renewed peace talks. Arab foreign ministers are due to meet in Cairo on Monday to discuss the crisis.Col Lerner told the BBC that Israel had aborted certain attacks for fear of killing civilians.Israel says it is targeting Hamas militants and “terror sites”, including the homes of senior operatives. It says it has struck some 1,320 such sites.A Palestinian health ministry spokesman has said 1,260 people have been injured in Gaza in addition to those killed. Some 800 Palestinians holding dual citizenship began leaving Gaza via Israel’s Erez Crossing.Meanwhile Israeli air strikes on Gaza and rocket fire on Israel have continued, on the seventh day of Israel’s operation against Palestinian militants.Palestinian officials say 172 people in Gaza have been killed since the offensive began last Tuesday.Israel says nearly 1,000 rockets have been fired from Gaza in that time. It said it shot down a Palestinian drone near Ashdod on Monday morning.Thousands of people have fled homes in northern Gaza after an Israeli warning.Israel has massed thousands of troops on the border, amid speculation of a possible a ground invasion.One bomb fell on a center for the disabled. Another wiped out 18 members of the same family.By Monday morning, the death toll from nearly a week of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza had reached 172 — all of them Palestinians-with more than 1,250 wounded, according to Palestinian health authorities.Over the weekend, Israel dropped leaflets instructing residents to leave northern areas of Gaza, where it planned to carry out strikes. But Hamas, which controls Gaza, told people to stay put.Ahmed, a resident of northern Gaza, loaded his family into a taxi Sunday to take them to somewhat safer ground in Gaza City. In Gaza City, where some streets are strewn with rubble, people are taking refuge in UN buildings. More than 1,000 gathered in one school alone.Um Juma’a says she and her family of 15 fled their home at 2 a.m. “We told the kids, ‘Get up! Get up!’ ” she says. “We walked all the way here.”A baby in the family needs milk, but they don’t have any.”We have nothing,” she says. “Not even safety.”Israel has so far shrugged off international calls for a cease-fire, saying it will continue the offensive as long as the militant group Hamas keeps firing rockets into its territory.And Hamas shows no sign of letting up after launching almost 1,000 rockets at Israel.Caught in the middle are the residents of Gaza. While the Israeli attacks have killed some militants, around 70% of the fatalities were civilians, according to the United Nations. Of the dead, more than 30 are children, the UN reported.”I urgently call on the Israeli Security Forces to put an end to attacks against, or endangering, civilians and civilian infrastructure which are contrary to international humanitarian law,” said Pierre Krahenbuhl, commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNWRA.There are now 17,000 refugees taking shelter in 20 schools in Gaza, UNWRA said, and the airstrikes have damaged 47 of its buildings, including clinics, schools and warehouses.UNWRA called on Israel to exercise maximum restraint and precaution to avoid more casualties.”Clearly at this stage not enough is being done in that regard,” Krahenbuhl said.Israel said its forces have struck 1,470 “terror targets” across Gaza, including 770 concealed rocket launchers.On Monday, an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis, a city in the southern Gaza Strip, struck a motorcycle, killing one member of Islamic Jihad, Palestinian medical and security forces said. One airstrike hit the house of the head of the Gaza police, Tayseer al-Batsh, killing at least 18 people, all of them members of the same extended family, and wounding 50, Palestinian security and medical sources told CNN on Sunday. The attack, whose youngest victim was 10, happened late Saturday.Earlier that day, an Israeli airstrike hit a center for the disabled, killing two women.”Every people in Gaza are suspected as targets to Israel. We cannot live in peace in this situation,” said Dr. Ahmed Jarour at Gaza’s Shifa hospital, where two patients with severe burns from the disabled center attack were brought in. The current wave of violence followed the killing of three Israeli teenagers in June and the suspected revenge killing of a Palestinian teenager in Jerusalem.On Monday Israeli officials said three arrested Israeli Jews had now confessed to the murder of the Palestinian, Mohammed Abu Khdair. A court gagging order has been eased but the names of the three, including two minors, have not been released. They have been remanded in custody.
