Israeli ground, air and naval forces continued hitting Gaza Strip over the past hours following a short-lived truce aimed at halting more than three weeks of hostilities between the troops and Palestinian Islamist factions entrenched in the enclave.
Palestinian medical sources said 50 Palestinians died as a result of latest attacks, particularly air strikes that targeted buildings in Rafah in southern Gaza. Fifteen members of a single family died when their house was hit with an air-to-surface missile unleashed by the raiding aircraft. Among the dead were five children whose age ranged between three and 12, according to the sources.
The warplanes bombed a building in Al-Sabra district in southern sector of Gaza city, killing five members of another family. They also hit and demolished a building of the local interior administration. Several other buildings and houses in the strip were also struck, badly damaged or destroyed, over the past hours.
Meanwhile, the local health administration appealed to the international community to try coerce Israel allow carving out "a safe corridor" to secure transfer of the dead and the injured from the scenes of attacks.
In addition to some 30 houses that were bombed over the past hours, at least two mosques were also directly hit, according to the Palestinian sources. Daoud Suleiman, a 54-year-old prayer caller at Al-Omari Mosque in Jibalya, lost his life when the mosque was struck. Aisha Mosque in Al-Tawam west of Jibalya and Imam Al-Shafei Mosque in Al-Zaitoun district were also rocketed and demolished.
Among the latest targets of the air strikes were the Islamic University compound in Gaza city and a four-story building in Khan Younes.
In a related development, Izz-Eddine Al-Qassam Brigades, military wing of the Islamic movement Hamas, indicated in a statement that an Israeli military officer, said to have been captured in ground encounters in Rafah yesterday, might have lost his life during clashes between advancing Israeli troops and Al-Qassam fighters who resisted the tank-led regulars.
Al-Qassam Brigades said the Israeli forces, during yesterday's cessation of hostilities, advanced into Palestinian-held positions in Rafah but got engaged in an ambush. "We lost contact with the group of mujahedeens (fighters) who were involved in the ambush, and we presumed that all of them had fallen as martyrs due to the Zionist bombardment -- including the Israeli soldier -- reported by the enemy as missing and presumed taken as prisoner by the group of our fighters during the clash.
"We in Al-Qassam Brigades have no knowledge till this moment about fate of the missing soldier; we neither have information about his whereabouts nor circumstances of his disappearance." The faction blamed Israel for breaching yesterday's 72-hour truce, jointly declared by the United Nations and the United States, stressing that its fighters had to engage the advancing Israeli troops in Rafah.
Palestinian gunners, in the meantime, fired a new salvo of rockets targeting Israeli towns, settlements and cities, including Tel Aviv and Haifa (Jaffa).
The Israeli Army reported that the anti-missile Iron Dome network intercepted two of the incoming rockets that approached the skies over Tel Aviv, while sirens blared in the city and other Israeli towns, warning Israelis that they must remain indoors for their safety.
Some 1,650 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in 26 days of attacks since the present conflict started. On the Israeli side, 63 soldiers and three civilians also died.