Israel's ground offensive, airstrikes and shelling intensify in Gaza

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Israeli military seek and destroy Gaza tunnels
Israeli bulldozers demolished more than a dozen tunnels Saturday in the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian authorities reported intensified airstrikes and shelling as the death toll from Israel's ground offensive rose to at least 342 Palestinians. Diplomats struggled to revive a cease-fire.

Clashes persisted into late Saturday, with heavy fighting reported in several parts of Gaza.

Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra said the new round of airstrikes raised the death toll from the 12-day offensive to at least 342 Palestinians, many of them civilians.

In Israel, a Gaza rocket killed a man near the southern city of Dimona and wounded four people, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said, marking the second Israeli civilian casualty from the fighting. An Israeli soldier was killed after the start of the ground operation, probably from friendly fire.

Casualties could mount quickly if the military moves deeper into urban areas.

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."

In a fresh effort to broker a truce, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon was to leave Saturday for the Middle East to help mediate the Gaza conflict.

Israeli officials have said the offensive could last up to two weeks or possibly longer.

Also Saturday, Egypt opened its border crossing with Gaza, admitting wounded to Egyptian hospitals and allowing aid and doctors back in.

Israeli border shelling sends refugees pouring inland
In a school in northern Gaza, scores of families sweat in cramped classrooms. Babies cry, while restless kids draw on chalkboards and worried parents give thanks for their relative safety.

Ignore if you don't have a heart

They are among more than 50,000 civilians taken in by the main United Nations agency in Gaza, UNRWA, as they flee heavy shelling amid an Israeli ground offensive into the border areas of the Gaza Strip.

UNRWA is now warning that its funds and supplies are running critically low. From Sunday, it says, it will no longer be able to provide enough mattresses for the flow of refugees, and has launched an urgent appeal for 60 million dollars.

Elsewhere in the hospital 25-year old policeman Rashad, stationed on duty, said the grave injuries and dead bodies rolling in no longer had much impact on him.

"But I do get affected when I rush out with the ambulances and I see houses of normal people in chaos, destroyed," he added. "It makes me think, we're all victims in these wars."

While the doctors work and security staff keep a look out, other employees scrape soapy water across the pavement in front of its trauma ward, hoping to wipe clean the blood spatters from the flow of victims from the Beit Lahiya area near the northern border.

The spots don't come out.

Singapore mosques to raise funds for Gaza victims
All 68 mosques in Singapore, in collaboration with the Rahmatan Lil Alamin Foundation, are organising a fund-raising drive for humanitarian relief for the victims of the conflict in Gaza, the foundation said in a statement today (July 16).

Humanitarian relief efforts will focus on the provision of basic essentials like food, water and electricity, as well as medicine and clothing.

Those who wish to contribute to the fund can do so at donation boxes placed at all 68 mosques starting this Friday (18 July) until next Thursday (24 July).

Cheques are to be made payable to the “RLAF” with the words “Fund raising in aid of victims of humanitarian conflict in Gaza” written on the back and sent to the Muis Building at the Singapore Islamic Hub at No 273, Braddell Road; or donate online via the Muis’ website (https://www.muis.gov.sg/epayment/Donations.aspx).

Thousands march for Gaza in London, clashes in Paris
Parts of central London were brought to a standstill on Saturday as thousands of pro-Palestinians marched in protest against Israel's offensive in Gaza, while in Paris a banned demonstration descended into violence.

In London, demonstrators held up placards pleading for Israel to end its attacks on Gaza, and reading "Stop the bombing, free Palestine" and "End Israeli apartheid".

Police refused to give an estimate for the number present but several roads through the centre of the capital were closed during the three-mile (4.8-kilometre) march, which passed off peacefully.

In Paris, by contrast, clashes broke out after hundreds gathered in defiance of a ban on their demonstration, with crowds throwing stones and bottles at riot police, who responded with tear gas.

Some 33 people were arrested by early evening, a police source said, while three police officers were injured in the disorder near Montmartre in the north of the French capital.

Twelve days of violence between Israeli forces and Hamas has seen more than 340 Palestinians killed in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, as well as five Israelis.

One of the organisers of the march condemned British and US support for Israel as "nothing less than collusion with war crimes killing women, children and disabled people".