’Israel’ Mobilizes More 16000 Reservists, Massacres more than 100 Wednesday
Local Editor
"Israel" mobilized 16,000 additional reservists, taking their total to 86,000, as its brutal aggression on the besieged Gaza Strip continues for the 24th day.
"The army has issued 16,000 additional mobilization orders to allow troops on the ground to rest, which takes the total number of reservists to 86,000," said the "Israeli" spokeswoman.
""Israel's" security cabinet, which met for five hours Wednesday, unanimously decided to pursue attacks against Hamas "terrorist targets" and other operations to destroy the network of tunnels used by the movement between Gaza and "Israel"," the "Israeli" public radio said.
Another meeting of the cabinet, which comprises eight ministers, will be held Thursday afternoon, the radio added.
Public radio quoted Major General Sami Turgeman, the senior officer for the Gaza region, as saying that the destruction of the Resistance's remaining tunnels into "Israel" could be complete "in a few days".
This comes as more than 100 Palestinians were martyred in "Israeli" strikes across Gaza Wednesday, medics said, including 17 at a crowded marketplace, sending the Palestinian toll from 23 days of continuous "Israeli" massacre above 1,350.
An earlier strike also martyred 16 people when shells hit a UN school.
The marketplace massacre martyred 17 people and wounded at least 200, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said, when several shells struck the area in Shejaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City.
An almost equally deadly strike at a UN-run school in Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza martyred 16 people and wounded scores more when two shells slammed into the facility, drawing a furious denunciation from the UN chief and the world body's agency for Palestinian refugees.
In another strike on a house in Tuffah neighborhood in northeastern Gaza City, seven members of the same family were martyred, among them four children and a woman, Qudra said.
In the southern city of Khan Yunis, a single strike martyred 10 members of the same family, including a child, Qudra said, and in a later incident, seven members of another family also died as "Israeli" tank fire hit the city.
Later in the day, medics pulled the bodies of another seven people from the rubble of a house in Khan Yunis, also from the same family.
In another shelling attack in Gaza City, an 11-year-old disabled girl was martyred, and a 16-year-old girl martyred in a strike on central Gaza.
So far, 1,359 people have been martyred -- 108 on Wednesday alone, with another 20 bodies dug out from rubble.
More than 7,200 have been wounded since the start of the "Israeli" aggression, which began with an intensive air campaign on July 8 and expanded when Israel sent ground troops into the Gaza periphery on July 17.
OCHA also said up to 240,000 Palestinians had been internally displaced by the fighting, with the UN agency for refugees saying more than 200,000 of them had taken refuge in 85 of its shelters. The rest were staying with relatives or friends.
On the "Israeli" side, the army said that three more soldiers were killed on Wednesday when booby traps in a house and tunnel exploded.
Media reports said another 15 were wounded.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
