Israeli military offensive kills seven in Gaza

GAZA CITY: Seven people, including a teenager and five gunmen, were killed in the Gaza Strip on Saturday as Israel pressed an offensive on militants that has left 42 Palestinians and one soldier dead in four days.   

The bloodshed followed one of Gaza's deadliest days in months, when 19 people were killed as Israel continued an operation launched early Wednesday aimed at stopping rocket fire into Israeli territory.   

Two brothers, aged 25 and 26, and a 16-year-old boy were killed in an afternoon helicopter raid in Jabaliya. The armed wing of the ruling Islamist Hamas movement said the brothers belonged to the faction.   

Earlier a local Hamas militant commander was killed in an air raid in Gaza City that wounded four other militants, medics said.   

A Hamas militant and a 46-year-old man were killed in Beit Hanun, and another Hamas militant died of wounds after an artillery strike on nearby Jabaliya which also wounded four other gunmen.   

One Israeli soldier was also seriously wounded overnight, the army said.   

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who has slammed the operation as a "massacre," called on the United Nations Security Council to convene to discuss the issue, his spokesman said.   

Abbas "sent a message to the head of the Security Council asking him to convene immediately to discuss the tragic situation in Gaza because of Israeli aggression, which has killed 42 Palestinians so far," Nabil Abu Rudeina said.   

Abbas also called the Arab League chief Amr Mussa to "initiate an Arab League meeting to discuss the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."   

In Beit Hanun, which has been reoccupied by Israeli troops since Wednesday, residents cooped up inside their homes got a brief respite after the army suspended patrols for three hours.   

Israel says the town, which has borne the brunt of "Operation Autumn Clouds", has become a launchpad for rocket fire.   

"Most of the time, because of the combat, we're calling on people that it's best to stay at home," an army spokesman said. "Today between 8 am and 11 am (0600 and 0900 GMT) humanitarian organizations were allowed into Beit Hanun and we stopped many of our patrols in order for people to leave their homes, open their stores."   

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, delivered water, food and other basic aid to the town, as its Gaza director John Ging called the situation there "desperate".   

"Death, destruction and despair are the terms to describe the situation," Ging said.   

"The situation is very grim. The civilian population is living in a very difficult situation. There is shortage of food, of water, there is destruction and devastation everywhere... The entire population is now living in fear, it's extremely dangerous."   

"We have to make an appeal to end the violence because the cycle of violence results in innocent civilians paying the price, often with their lives," Ging said.   

In all, 42 Palestinians, including at least 21 militants, and one Israeli soldier have died and more than 90 Palestinians have been wounded in the operation, which has also seen around 100 people detained.   

Israel says it launched the operation to stop militants from firing rockets into communities bordering the Gaza Strip since Israel left the territory last year, closing the curtain 38 years of occupation.   

But the latest blitz has failed to stop the fire, with one rocket hitting Israel on Saturday and 17 in all since Wednesday, lightly wounding at least three people.   

Israel's offensive is also aimed at securing the release of an Israeli soldier captured in a cross-border raid on June 25. Palestinian foreign minister Mahmud Zahar warned Saturday that the life of the conscript could be endangered by the operation.   

"The Israeli aggression could target the life of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, because (Israeli bombardments) could target (the place of detention of) the soldier," Zahar was quoted as saying in Cairo by Egypt's official MENA news agency.   

Businesses in the West Bank went on strike Saturday in protest at the operation, with shops in Ramallah shuttered after a call to close by the Al-Aqsa Brigades, a militant group loosely linked with president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party.   

Britain, France and the United Nations called for restraint and avoiding further civilian casualties, but Israel's most powerful ally the United States blamed the violence on Palestinian militants, saying the Jewish state was defending itself. Egypt, one of two Arab countries to have a peace treaty with Israel, condemned the operation's "excessive use of force and lack of regard for civilians."   

Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit also urged all Palestinian factions "to stop launching rockets in order not to provoke a reaction by the Israeli forces, and not to give them a pretext to carry out other intensive military offensives which do not spare civilians."