Israeli forces bottling up Gaza Strip kept the enclave under barrages of bombs and shells and rockets over the past hours and Palestinian factions positioned in the region fought back on the ground and fired fresh rocket volleys targeting Israeli towns and settlements.
Israeli military aircraft, including pilotless reconnaissance planes equipped with missiles, took part in the latest round of attacks on Gaza that was also subjected to intensive gunfire from Israeli-manned artillery batteries and gunboats constantly cruising off the coastal Palestinian-inhabited areas.
Medical sources said some 20 Palestinians died and 70 others were wounded in these attacks, during the period between midnight till now, bringing the Palestinian death toll of the ongoing Israeli offensive to more than 1,725, including 398 children, 207 women and 74 old persons. The attacks also wounded nearly 10,000 others; among them 2,744 children, 1,750 women and girls and 343 elderly, in addition to extensive destruction, marked with heaps of flattened buildings in the neighborhoods, particularly those adjacent to the demarcation lines.
Among those who have "fallen as martyrs" as a result of the attacks, the sources said, was Hatem Wahdan, 50, Saniora Wahdan, 27 Jamila Wahdan, Amani Abu Jazar, 23, and her two-old twin babies, in addition to others whose names were not immediately known. Scores of civilians were wounded in intensive bombardments targeting houses in Jibalya and Rafah. At dawn, five persons were wounded in a raid on Shuhadaa Al-Zaitoun Mosque in southern Gaza. They were all whisked to Al-Shifaa Hospital.
The Israeli attacks, with tanks, cannons and warplanes, have hit, demolished or badly damaged several mosques in the strip, in addition to the Islamic University building that was directly in the offensives yesterday.
Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a statement 11 injured Palestinians were admitted at the "Kuwaiti Hospital" in Rafah. Construction of this hospital had been built with funds granted by the Kuwaiti International Al-Rahma Charity.
The Palestinian sources reported a number of Palestinians were either killed or wounded in recurring air and ground attacks in Rafah and other sectors of the enclave.
Meanwhile, Israel officially acknowledged that an Israeli military officer, initially said to have been captured by the Palestinians in clashes in Rafah, two days ago, had been killed. This came after the Islamic Hamas movement declared that it had no information about his destiny or whereabouts.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the number-one architect of the military operation on Gaza, indicated at a news conference yesterday that his forces would continue the military action against Hamas till destruction of all its underground tunnels, but hinted that the military might carry out a limited withdrawal from the areas skirting the strip.
Netanyahu threatened Hamas that "it would pay a heavy price for continuing opening force," prompting the group to vow, "We will carry on with the resistance till accomplishing our objectives."
The Palestinian factions in Gaza declared firing rocket salvos in the direction of Israel and the Israeli Army confirmed that two of the missiles crashed harmless in southern Negev.
Israel enlisted tens of thousands of reservists and launched the wide-scale attack on Gaza in the aftermath of recent abduction and subsequent killing of three young Jewish settlers. Israeli blamed Hamas for the incident, and a single Palestinian teen, later on, faced an identical fate.
Tel Aviv has waged the war saying it will no longer tolerate recurring rocket attacks from the strip and pledging to crush an underground network of tunnels used by the militants to smuggle and wage hit-and-run attacks. The Gazan warriors have apparently masterminded fabrication of limited-range missiles and managed to bring from abroad secretly various types of rockets.
Hamas and another military group in Gaza, Islamic Jihad, believe that the occupation must be dealt with "with the gun and the olive branch," however, the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Hamas, which administers large swaths of the West Bank solely advocates diplomacy to relieve the natives of the occupation.