News desk :The bloodshed in Gaza prompted the United Nations’ top human rights official to warn that war crimes may have been committed, accusing Israel of “deliberate defiance of obligations (to) international law.”UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay referred to the shelling of homes, schools, hospitals and UN premises, while insisting, “We cannot allow this impunity, we cannot allow this lack of accountability to go on.” “None of this appears, to me, to be accidental,” Pillay said.Pressure is coming from around the world over the growing civilian casualties in the conflict.Nearly a month into Israel’s fierce assault on Hamas in Gaza, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is facing mounting domestic pressure to seek war crimes charges against Israel at the International Criminal Court.He has hesitated in the past because such a move would instantly put the Palestinians on a risky collision course with Israel. But with about 1,400 Palestinians killed in Gaza, according to health officials, Abbas has signaled he might now move ahead – cautiously.Palestinian officials said Thursday that Abbas asked all Palestinian political factions, including Hamas and the smaller group Islamic Jihad, to give their written consent to such a move. Different PLO factions signed up in a meeting in the West Bank earlier this week, while Abbas is still waiting for a response from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, they said.In trying to make a case against Israel, Abbas could also expose Hamas, a bitter rival turned potential political partner, to war crimes prosecution because it has fired thousands of rockets from Gaza at Israeli communities over the years.At least 1,509 civilians have been killed in Gaza, and 8,360 wounded, during the current conflict, Gaza Ministry of Health spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said. That’s more than the 1,417 Palestinians that the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said died in the 22 days of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, which spanned 2008 and 2009.Meanwhile, A three-day humanitarian truce in Gaza collapsed only hours after it began Friday amid a deadly new wave of violence and the apparent capture by Hamas of an Israeli soldier.Intensive shelling killed dozens of people in southern Gaza hours into the short-lived truce, with Hamas accusing Israel of breaking the ceasefire and the Jewish state saying it was responding to rocket fire.The skies over Gaza fell silent after the ceasefire announced overnight by US Secretary of State John Kerry, the longest one agreed upon of several since the conflict began on July 8.Starting from 0500 GMT, it gave brief respite to people in the battered strip from fighting that has killed nearly 1,500 on the Palestinian side, mostly civilians, and 63 Israeli soldiers and three civilians on the other.AFP correspondents said there appeared to be fierce fighting in the vicinity of Rafah, and medics had trouble retrieving the dead and wounded. The army warned people to remain in their homes, saying in voice messages to mobile phones that it was “pursuing terrorist elements in Rafah”.Kerry had said earlier that once the ceasefire was under way, Israeli and Palestinian representatives, including from Hamas, would begin talks in Cairo on a more durable truce.Egypt had invited Israel and the Palestinian Authority to send delegates to Cairo for longer-term truce talks, with the foreign ministry emphasising the “importance of both sides committing to the ceasefire so the negotiations can take place in a favourable atmosphere”.But the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad later said Egypt was postponing the talks after news of the Israeli soldier’s capture.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said a joint Palestinian delegation, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, will travel to Cairo Saturday for ceasefire talks despite the renewed fighting in Gaza.The United States blamed Hamas for the breakdown of a ceasefire with Israeli forces Friday, accusing the Palestinian militant group of launching a “barbaric” attack to capture an Israeli soldier.”This is an outrageous action and we look to the rest of the world to join us in condemning it,” White House Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken told MSNBC television.The White House reacted after Israel ended a three-day truce only hours after it began, accused Hamas of ambushing its troops and expressed fears that a soldier had been captured.But Chile, Peru, Brazil and Ecuador have pulled their ambassadors out of Tel Aviv to protest the Israeli offensive. Even the United States-an ally of Israel-believes “the Israelis need to do more” to prevent civilian deaths, Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren told reporters.
