Horror piles on horror: Now Israeli tank shells destroy two floors of a HOSPITAL as death toll tops 550 on 14th day of conflict in Gaza
Donning blood-stained bandages and ripped clothing, hospital patients lie injured or dead on the floor while their distraught relatives weep. These are the horrific scenes at Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza strip, which was hit by Israeli tank shells today. At least four people were killed and a further 60 wounded in the shelling, while hospital beds, chairs and equipment were severely damaged. Doctor Fayez Zidane, said the third and fourth floors and the reception area were destroyed, leading to patients being evacuated to the lower floors. WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO +41 Blaze: Smoke rises from Al Shejaeiya, east Gaza City, during a military operation last night. The death toll now stands at least 550 Palestinians, health officials claim +41 Patients: A woman cries as she speaks on the phone at Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, which was hit by Israeli tank shells today +41 Wounded: This photo of the aftermath of the shelling shows a man lying wounded beneath a hospital sink; his head wrapped in a towel and his feet soaked with blood +41 In pain: At least four people were killed and a further 60 wounded in the shelling, while hospital beds, chairs and equipment were damaged. Above, an injured patient +41 Distraught: The relatives of a patient killed in the Israeli army shelling are pictured clinging on to each other as they weep for their loved one +41 Another life lost: The death toll among Palestinians from the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip has reached at least 550, Gaza health officials said One photo of the aftermath of the shelling shows a man lying wounded beneath a hospital sink; his head wrapped in a towel, his knees bandaged and his feet soaked with blood. Another features a woman, who is sat on a bench cradling a baby, crying on the phone as she looks at the devastation around her. It is the latest attack in the 14-day conflict that has so far claimed the lives of at least 550 Palestinians and left a staggering 3,350 wounded, according to Gaza health officials. Twenty Israelis, including 18 soldiers, have also been killed and several dozen wounded, including soldiers. Today, a photo of a desperate Palestinian boy was released that captured the tragic and bloody tension of the conflict in Gaza. Badly wounded and screaming for his father, the youngster was pictured clutching at the shirt of a paramedic who was attempting to lay him flat on a hospital bed. The Electronic Intifada, a pro-Palestinian publication, reported the photo, taken at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City last Thursday, was captioned with the boy's desperate cry: 'I want my father, bring me my father', according to Fairfax. +41 Destroyed: A Palestinian employee inspects damages at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, after the building was shelled today +41 Evacuation: Doctor Fayez Zidane, said the third and fourth floors and the reception area were destroyed, leading to patients being evacuated to the lower floors +41 Rescue operation: It is the latest attack in the 14-day conflict that has so far claimed the lives of at least 550 Palestinians and left a staggering 3,350 wounded +41 Another attack: Palestinian medics tend to a boy who they said was wounded in an Israeli shelling, at a hospital, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip today +41 'I want my father': This photo of a desperate, injured Palestinian boy, released today, captures the tragic and bloody tension of the conflict in Gaza. +41 Frontline: Israeli soldiers of the 155mm artillery cannons unit fire towards the Gaza Strip from their position near Israel's border with the coastal Palestinian enclave today +41 Armed: World efforts to broker a ceasefire in war-torn Gaza gathered pace as Israel pressed a blistering 14-day assault on the enclave today +41 +41 Conflict: An Israeli soldier puts his fingers in his ears as a tank fires artillery shells towards the Gaza strip today (left), while Israeli soldiers patrol the town of Sderot after a group of Hamas militants was detected infiltrating into Israel (right) The Palestinian paper claims the young boy was one of four siblings brought to the hospital wounded, two of them just three years old. It comes as grinning Israeli tank commanders were pictured flashing the victory signs as they blast their way through Gaza in the bloodiest day of the offensive so far - as one resident of the troubled region said: 'The gate of hell has opened. As Israeli airstrikes continued to pound Gaza on Monday, rescue workers near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis were digging out bodies from a home flattened in one of the strikes overnight, said Ashraf al-Kidra, a Gaza health ministry official. Al-Kidra said the Palestinian death toll from the two-week offensive stood at 508 as of Monday morning, including 20 bodies that were found at the site in Khan Younis. Two people were pulled alive from the rubble, he added. Elsewhere in Gaza, Israeli tanks opened fire on the home of the Siyam family west of Rafah in the southern part of the strip, killing 10 people, including four young children and a 9-month-old baby girl, al Kidra said. +41 Patrol: Israeli soldiers patrol near the town of Sderot. The Israeli military said 10 infiltrators were killed after being detected and targeted by Israeli aircraft +41 Waging war: An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires towards the Gaza Strip today. The United States, alarmed by escalating civilian bloodshed, has taken a direct role in efforts to secure a ceasefire +41 Flare: A picture taken from the southern Israeli Gaza border shows the smoke of a flare next to Israeli army Merkava tanks and armoured personnel carriers (APC) in the Gaza strip today +41 Victim: The coffin of killed Israeli soldier Amotz Greenberg at his funeral in the cemetery of Hod Hasharon in Israel +41 Grief: Israeli soldiers of the Paratroopers Brigade mourn over the grave of Sgt. Bnaya Rubel during his funeral +41 Israeli soldiers flash the victory sign on their armoured personnel carrier (APC) at an army deployment near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip = +41 Funeral: The brothers and sisters of slain 20-year-old Israeli Staff Sergeant Moshe Melako of the Golani Brigade, who was killed during fighting in the Gaza Strip yesterday +41 Protest: Moroccans activists shout slogans, in Rabat, Morocco, yesterday during a demonstration to protest against the Israeli army's shelling in the Gaza strip +41 Activists: Pro-Israeli activists take part in a rally in support of Israel in St. Petersburg, Russia, on the 14th day of the Gaza conflict. At least 550 people have now died +41 Explosion: Smoke rises after an Israeli shelling at the Shijaiyah neighborhood in Gaza City, today. The top Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip has signalled that the Islamic militant group will not agree to an unconditional cease-fire with Israel, while Israel's defense minister pledged to keep fighting 'as long as necessary', raising new doubt about the highest-level mediation mission in two weeks +41 Prayer: Palestinians pray over Hamas green flag-draped bodies of 17 members of the Abu Jamea immediate and extended family, killed by an Israeli strike at their house, during their funeral in Khan Younis Meanwhile, the Israeli military said it foiled a Hamas infiltration attempt today through two tunnels leading from northern Gaza into southern Israel. Earlier today, the top Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip signaled that the Islamic militant group will not agree to an unconditional cease-fire with Israel, while Israel's defense minister pledged to keep fighting 'as long as necessary' - raising new doubt about the highest-level mediation mission in two weeks. In New York, the U.N. Security Council expressed 'serious concern' about Gaza's rising civilian death toll and demanded an immediate end to the fighting following an emergency session. U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry were heading to Cairo today to try to end the deadliest conflict between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers in just over five years. Meanwhile, cross-border fighting continued unabated, with Israeli strikes leaving entire families buried under rubble and Hamas militants firing more than 50 rockets and trying to sneak into Israel through two tunnels, the latest in a series of such attempts. +41 An injured Palestinian child is brought to al-Najar hospital following the Israeli air strike in Rafah, Gaza Strip. The casualties have mounted during the Israeli attacks on Gaza +41 Frantic parents carried children wounded by shrapnel and the emergency room quickly overflowed, forcing doctors to treat some patients on mattresses in a hallway +41 A Palestinian boy, who medics said was wounded by Israeli shelling, receives treatment at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City +41 At least 20 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli shelling in a Gaza neighbourhood, where bodies were strewn in the street and thousands fled toward the hospital packed with wounded civilians +41 The mass casualties in the Shejaia district in northeast Gaza appeared to be the heaviest since Israel launched its offensive on the Palestinian territory on July 8 This afternoon, Israeli fighter planes struck homes across Gaza, burying at least three families under the rubble in at least four cases, said Ashraf al-Kidra, a Palestinian health official. In one of the strikes, nine members of a single family were killed in Gaza City, he said. In another, 10 people of a family were killed in the southern Gaza Strip. Rescuers going through the wreckage of a house targeted late Sunday also retrieved 28 bodies in the town of Khan Younis, including at least 24 from the Abu Jamea family, according to al-Kidra and a local human rights group. 'Doesn't this indicate that Israel is ruthless?' said family member Sabri Abu Jamea. 'Are we the liars? The evidence is here in the morgue refrigerators. The evidence is in the refrigerators.' The Israeli military said 10 Hamas infiltrators were killed after being detected and targeted by Israeli aircraft. Hamas also fired 50 more rockets at Israel, including two at Tel Aviv, causing no injuries or damage. Since the start of the Israeli operation, Hamas has fired almost 2,000 rockets at Israel. +41 An injured Palestinian family cram into a car as they arrive at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Early this morning, the wounded from Shijaiyah were rushed to Gaza City's central Shifa Hospital +41 A Palestinian carries a wounded girl in the emergency room of Shifa hospital in Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip +41 Israel says it is going to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties and blames them on Hamas, accusing it of firing from within residential neighborhoods and using civilians as 'human shields' +41 A Palestinian woman, who fled her house following an Israeli ground offensive, stays at a United Nations-run school in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. At least 20 Palestinians were killed on Sunday by Israeli shelling in a Gaza neighbourhood, witnesses and health officials said +41 Palestinians look at the rubble of a house which police said was destroyed in an Israeli air strike in Rafah, in what appeared to be the heaviest since Israel launched its offensive on the Palestinian territory on July 8 Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said the Gaza military operation would have no time limit. 'If needed we will recruit more reservists in order to continue the operation as long as necessary until the completion of the task and the return of the quiet in the whole of Israel especially from the threat of the Gaza Strip,' Yaalon told a parliamentary committee. Israel accepted an Egyptian call for an unconditional cease-fire last week, but resumed its offensive after Hamas rejected the proposal. Hamas says that before halting fire, it wants guarantees that Israel and Egypt will significantly ease a seven-year border blockade of Gaza. Ismail Haniyeh, the top Hamas leader in Gaza, signaled today that Hamas is sticking to its position. He said the aim of the battle is to break the 7-year-old blockade of the Palestinian territory. The blockade was imposed by Israel and Egypt after Hamas overran Gaza in 2007. Over the past year, Egypt has further tightened restrictions, driving Hamas into a deep financial crisis. +41 An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires towards Gaza. Militants have kept up their rocket fire on Israel, with no sign of a diplomatic breakthrough toward a ceasefire in sight +41 An Israeli artillery fires a 155mm shell towards targets in the Gaza Strip from their position near Israel's border with the Strip +41 Israel launched the ground operation late Thursday after hundreds of airstrikes on the Hamas-ruled territory failed to halt unrelenting rocket fire that has increasingly targeted major Israeli cities +41 Israel says it has encountered little resistance on the ground so far, and has killed about 20 militants in sporadic gun battles. Three soldiers were wounded in overnight fighting, one seriously, the military said Haniyeh said in a televised speech that 'we cannot go back, we cannot go back to the silent death' of the blockade. He said all of Gaza's 1.7million residents shared this demand. 'Gaza has decided to end the blockade by its blood and by its courage,' he said. 'This unjust siege must be lifted.' Hamas remains deeply suspicious of the motives of the Egyptian government, which has banned the Muslim Brotherhood, a region-wide group to which Hamas also belongs. Israel invaded Gaza late last week, preceded by a 10-day air campaign. Air and artillery strikes have targeted Gaza's border areas in an attempt to destroy tunnels and rocket launchers. 'If needed we will recruit more reservists in order to continue the operation as long as necessary until the completion of the task' Moshe Yaalon, Israeli Defense Minister Yesterday marked the single deadliest day in Gaza since the conflict erupted on July 8, with more than 100 Palestinians killed, according to Palestinian health officials. Most died in the first major ground battle of the conflict, in Gaza City's Shijaiyah neighborhood, which Israel says is a major source for rocket fire against its civilians. Yesterday evening, Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri in Gaza claimed his group had captured an Israeli soldier. An announcement on Gaza TV of the soldier's capture set off celebration in the streets of West Bank. But there was no official confirmation or denial of the claim in Israel. Earlier, the Israeli ambassador to the U.N., Ron Prosor, said the Hamas claim was untrue. For Israelis, a captured soldier would be a nightmare scenario. Hamas-allied militants seized an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid in 2006 and held him captive in Gaza until Israel traded more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom were involved in grisly killings, for his return in 2011.
| Bloody Weekend in GazaJUL 21, 2014 Sunday was the deadliest day yet in the recent battles in the Gaza Strip, capping a bloody weekend where more than a hundred Palestinians were killed, as well as 18 Israeli soldiers, following an Israeli advance into Gaza. Israel said on Sunday it had expanded its ground offensive, and Hamas militants kept up rocket fire into the Jewish state with no sign of a diplomatic breakthrough to end the worst fighting between Israel and Hamas in two years. The New York Times reports the death toll reaching at least 425 since Israel's air offensive began on July 8. gathered here are photographs of the conflict from just the past few days. A Palestinian woman wearing clothes stained with the blood of other relatives, who medics said were wounded in Israeli shelling, cries in a hospital in Gaza City on July 20, 2014. (Reuters/Mohammed Salem) Israeli tanks maneuver outside the northern Gaza Strip on July 18, 2014. Israel intensified its land offensive in Gaza with artillery, tanks and gunboats on Friday and warned it could "significantly widen" an operation Palestinian officials said was killing ever greater numbers of civilians. (Reuters/Ronen Zvulun) # Smoke and the flare of an explosion rise after an Israeli missile hit the Shijaiyah neighborhood in Gaza City on July 20, 2014. The neighborhood came under heavy tank fire Sunday as Israel widened its ground offensive against Hamas, causing hundreds of panicked residents to flee. (AP Photo/Adel Hana) # A Palestinian evacuates a wounded man following what police said was an Israeli air strike on a house in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on July 20, 2014. (Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa) # A Palestinian medic evacuates the body of a girl from Gaza's eastern Shejaiya district on July 20, 2014.(Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images) # An Israeli Apache attack helicopter shoots a missile over the Gaza Strip as seen from Israel's border with Gaza, on July 19, 2014. (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images) # Journalists and residents of the southern Israeli city of Sderot take cover on July 20, 2014 as they are on a hill overlooking the Gaza Strip where people watch the fighting between the Israeli army and Palestinian militants.(Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images) # A Palestinian policeman carries a boy, who medics said was wounded in Israeli shelling, at a hospital in Gaza City on July 20, 2014. (Reuters/Suhaib Salem) # Medics try to revive a Palestinian, wounded during an Israeli strike, at the emergency room of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, on July 19, 2014. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) # The body of a child lies in the morgue of the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on July 20, 2014. At least 40 people were killed and nearly 400 wounded in Israeli shelling of the Shejaiya district overnight, medics said.(Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images) # An interception of a rocket by the Iron Dome anti-missile system, above the Israeli town of Sderot, on July 21, 2014.(Reuters/Baz Ratner) # Palestinians flee their homes in Gaza's eastern Shejaiya district on July 20, 2014, after heavy Israeli shelling that left casualties lying in the streets, an AFP correspondent reported. Ambulances were unable to reach much of the area along the border because of heavy fire, and emergency services told AFP there were reports of dead and wounded trapped by the bombardment. (Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images) # Smoke rises after an Israeli missile hit Shijaiyah neighborhood in Gaza City, on July 20, 2014.(AP Photo/Hatem Moussa) # An Israeli shell hits the minaret of a mosque during Israeli air strikes on the eastern part of Gaza City on July 19, 2014.(Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images) # Israeli soldiers from the Golani Infantry Brigade prepare their equipment and weapons near their Armored Personnel Carrier at an army deployment near the Israeli-Gaza border on July 19, 2014. (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images) # Israelis, mostly residents of the southern Israeli city of Sderot, one holding a national flag, sit on a hill overlooking the Gaza Strip, on July 20, 2014, to watch the fighting between the Israeli army and Palestinian militants.(Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images) # The sky and the city are lit by Israeli forces' flares in the northern Gaza Strip, Friday, July 18, 2014.(AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) # A soldier motions that he does not want his photo taken while on an operation near the Israeli-Gaza border on July 19, 2014 near Sderot, Israel. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images) # Smoke rises after an Israeli missile strike on Gaza City, on July 19, 2014. (Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images) # A Palestinian carries the body of a child following an Israeli strike that hit a building in Gaza City, on July 20, 2014.(Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images) # An Israeli soldier runs with shell next to artillery cannons on July 20, 2014 at the Israeli-Gaza border.(Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images) # A Palestinian man holds the hand of a badly wounded woman, who medics said was wounded in an Israeli air strike, in the northern Gaza Strip on July 20, 2014. (Reuters/Abed Abu Reyash) # Medics evacuate the body of a girl from Gaza's eastern Shejaiya district on July 20, 2014.(Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images) # A Palestinian medic tries to comfort a wounded boy in Shifa hospital in Gaza City on July 18, 2014.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra) # Palestinians, one holding a white flag, flee Gaza City's Shijaiyah neighborhood, northern Gaza Strip, Sunday, July 20, 2014.(AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) # Lifeless bodies of children lay in the morgue of the Shifa hospital in Gaza City on July 20, 2014.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra) # Palestinian relatives of Roshdi Naser, mourn during his funeral in the Khan Younis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, July 19, 2014. Naser and eight others were killed in an early morning Israeli missile strike, officials said.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra) # A Palestinian man holds his daughters, Shada and Lama al-Ejla, who were injured in an Israeli tank attack, as he leaves al-Shifa hospital on July 18, 2014 in Gaza City. (Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images) # Palestinian Mahmoud Hamad, top, along with other members of the immediate and the extended family, inspects the damage at family house, destroyed by an Israeli strike, in Beit Lahiya on July 19, 2014. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis) # An Israeli soldier gestures on a Merkava tank, as part of the Israeli army deployment near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip on July 20, 2014. (Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images) # Israeli soldiers give medical care to soldiers who where wounded during an offensive in Gaza on July 20, 2014 at the Israeli-Gaza border. (Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images) # Israeli soldiers carry the flag-draped coffin of their comrade Amotz Greenberg during his funeral in the central town of Hod Hasharon on July 20, 2014. Eighteen Israeli soldiers, including Greenberg, and two Israeli civilians have been killed since a near two-week-old offensive was launched in response, Israel says, to mounting cross-border rocket attacks by Hamas militants. (Reuters/Tomer Appelbaum) # Soldiers and relatives mourn at the grave of Israeli Sergeant Banaya Rubel during his funeral on July 20, 2014 in Holon, Israel. Sergeant Rubel was killed along with another IDF soldier on the twelfth day of operation 'Protective Edge,' when Hamas militants infiltrated Israel from a tunnel dug from Gaza and engaged Israeli soldiers.(Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images) # The parents of 32-year-old Israeli army captain Tzafrir Bar-Or, a commander of the Golani Brigade killed the previous day fighting a group of Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, mourn over his coffin during his funeral in the central town of Holon, near Tel Aviv, on July 21, 2014. (Gil Cohen Magen/AFP/Getty Images) # Israeli soldiers of the 155mm artillery canons unit fire towards the Gaza Strip from their position near Israel's border with the coastal Palestinian enclave, on July 19, 2014. (Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images) # A Palestinian man reacts as he stands in a damaged street in Gaza's eastern Shejaiya district on July 20, 2014.(Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images) # Palestinian medical personnel treat a wounded girl at the emergency room of the Shifa hospital in Gaza City on July 18, 2014. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra) # A Palestinian searches for belongings among the rubble of a house which police said was destroyed in an Israeli air strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on July 20, 2014. (Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa) # A Palestinian family lies dead where they had sheltered near a stairwell during the Israeli military offensive on the Shejaiya neighborhood between Gaza City and the Israeli border on July 20, 2014. (Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images) # Palestinians carry a wounded woman into the emergency room of Shifa hospital in Gaza City on July 20, 2014.(AP Photo/Khalil Hamra) # An Israeli Apache helicopter fires flares above Israel near the border with northern Gaza on July 20, 2014.(Reuters/Baz Ratner) # Netream Netzleam holds the body of her daughter Razel, 1, who medics said died on Friday from injuries sustained in an Israeli air strike on Thursday afternoon, at her funeral in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on July 18, 2014.(Reuters/Finbarr O'Reilly) |
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