News Today

News Today

Despite calls for a new cease-fire, fighting intensified in Gaza on Monday and Tuesday morning, with Palestinians saying more than two dozen people died as rockets or mortars struck a refugee camp, a hospital and the center of Gaza City.

Eighteen people died as powerful and continuous air strikes rained down on Gaza City early Tuesday morning, the Palestinian Health Authority reported. And the Israeli military reported that 10 of its soldiers were killed Monday.

Al Aqsa TV reported that Israeli strikes hit the Ministry of Finance in western Gaza and the house of Ismail Haniyeh, a senior political leader of Hamas. A radio station run by Hamas was bombed.

Ten people, including eight children, were killed Monday when shells hit a refugee camp near the beach in Gaza where parents went to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, a Muslim holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

The children were playing in the street near their homes when an explosion shook the ground. Holes as large as fists pockmarked a nearby building, and 10 people -- eight of them children -- were killed, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

In the chaos, they were rushed to nearby Shifa Hospital. A TV news outlet run by Hamas showed live footage of the hospital. The channel blamed the carnage on an Israeli drone.

Shifa Hospital had been hit, too. Two people there were injured, the ministry said.

As before, Israel and Hamas accused each other of sending the bombs that killed people in Gaza. A short time later, Israel sent a text message to the media blaming Gaza "terrorists" for the attacks.

"In the blink of an eye," a father said, "I found body parts and heads cut off, no arms, no legs. I started to collect limbs, heads I couldn't recognize, I couldn't recognize my own children."

Though world leaders pleaded for a humanitarian cease-fire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a message on Israeli television Monday.

"We need to...

Similar Essays