Selig Reporters' Blog

By <strong>Jethro Mullen</strong> and <strong>Karl Penhaul, </strong>CNN<div class="cnn_stryathrtmp"><div class="cnn_strytmstmp">July 31, 2014 -- Updated 1153 GMT (1953 HKT)</div></div><div class="cnnStryVidCont" style="background-color: transparent;"><div id="cnnCVP1"><div class="adCountdown"><div id="source">Source: <span class="vidSource">CNN</span></div></div></div></div><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="em0"></a><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt"><div class="cnn_strylctcntr"><div><strong>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</strong></div><ul class="cnn_bulletbin cnnStryHghLght"><li><b>NEW:</b> Netanyahu says Israel will destroy Hamas tunnels with or without cease-fire</li><li>The conflict has killed 1,373 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, officials say</li><li>White House says Israel must do more to protect civilians</li><li>The Israeli military is calling up 16,000 additional reservists</li></ul></div></div><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt adtag15090"> </div><strong>Gaza City (CNN)</strong> -- The Israeli military said  Thursday that it is calling up 16,000 additional reservists, bolstering  its forces for its fight against Hamas in Gaza after a request for more  ammunition from the United States.<br /> <div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph2">The addition brings the  total number of reservists Israel has called up since the beginning of  the operation against Hamas to 86,000, a military spokeswoman said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph3">The conflict has killed more than 1,300 people in Gaza, most of them civilians. Fifty-six Israeli soldiers have been killed.</div><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="em1"></a><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt cnn_strylftcexpbx" id="expand14"> <cite class="expCaption"><span> </span></cite></div><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt cnn_strylftcexpbx" id="expand14"><cite class="expCaption"><span> </span></cite></div><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt cnn_strylftcexpbx" id="expand24"><cite class="expCaption"><span></span></cite></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph4">After more than three  weeks of fighting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said  Thursday that Israel would complete its goal of destroying Hamas'  network of tunnels with or without a cease-fire. Netanyahu said this is  just the first phase of the demilitarization of Gaza.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">While U.S. officials have  called on Israel to do more to protect civilians, the United States has  agreed to Israel's request to resupply it with several types of  ammunition, a U.S. defense official told CNN on condition of anonymity.  It's not an emergency sale, the official said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph6">Among the items being  bought are 120mm mortar rounds and 40mm ammunition for grenade  launchers, the official said. Those will come from a stockpile the  United States keeps in Israel, which is worth more than $1 billion.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph8"><strong>Shells land near U.N. school</strong></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph9">Meanwhile, a number of  shells fell Thursday next to a U.N. school housing displaced residents  -- a day after another school-turned-shelter was hit by artillery  killing more than a dozen people.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph10">"The school itself was  not targeted, it was nearby the school," Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman  for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said about the  Thursday incident.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph11">No one was killed inside the school -- the Beit Lahiya School for Girls, he said. Eight people were slightly injured.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph12">But Gaza health workers are struggling to deal with the relentless stream of dead and wounded.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph13">"The hospitals in Gaza  yesterday had a very difficult time, all the hospital morgues were  flooding with dead bodies, and the injured were laying on hospital  floors because of the lack of hospital beds," said Ashraf al-Qidra,  spokesman for the Gaza Ministry of Health.</div><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="em3"></a><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt cnn_strylftcexpbx" id="expand115"> <cite class="expCaption"><span> </span></cite></div><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt cnn_strylftcexpbx" id="expand115"><cite class="expCaption"><span>Dramatic video of Gaza market attack</span></cite></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph15"><strong>'Children killed in their sleep'</strong></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph16">On Wednesday, artillery  fire struck a different school -- the Jabalya Elementary Girls School --  that was housing more than 3,000 displaced Palestinians.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph17">The United Nations blamed Israel for the attack. And the Palestinian Health Ministry said 20 were killed.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph18">"Children killed in  their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal  shame," Pierre Krahenbuhl, head of the U.N. agency for Palestinians.  "Today the world stands disgraced."</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph19">Israel said a group of  militants fired at Israeli soldiers from the vicinity, and the soldiers  "responded by firing at the origin of the fire," a military spokesman  said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph20">"If our forces were  involved in a firefight, it's because Hamas has decided that it's open  season on the U.N.," Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph22"><strong>A 'likely war crime'?</strong></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph23">Wednesday's attack was the sixth on a U.N.-run school since the conflict began on July 8.</div><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="em4"></a><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt cnn_strylftcexpbx" id="expand124"> <cite class="expCaption"><span> </span></cite></div><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt cnn_strylftcexpbx" id="expand124"><cite class="expCaption"><span>Israeli Jews: Time to crush Hamas</span></cite></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph24">Amnesty International,  noting that UNRWA shared its coordinates with the Israeli army 17 times,  said the Jabalya attack was a "likely war crime."</div><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="em5"></a><div class="cnnGalleryContainer cnn_strylftcntnt" id="expand125"><div class="cnnStoryElementBox"> <div class="cnnArticlePhotoContainer cnn_strylftcexpbxnv" id="photoContainer125"><img alt="Photos: Israel-Gaza crisis" border="0" class="cnnArticleBoxImage" height="360" id="photo125" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/140730080236-restricted-01-israel-gaza-0730-horizontal-gallery.jpg" width="640" /><cite class="expCaption" id="cite125"><span>Photos: Israel-Gaza crisis</span></cite></div></div></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph25">"If the strike on this  school was the result of Israeli artillery fire it would constitute an  indiscriminate attack and a likely war crime," said Philip Luther,  Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty  International. "Artillery should never be used against targets in  crowded civilian areas and its use in such a manner would never be  considered a 'surgical' strike."</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph26">Israel has said errant Hamas rocket fire is responsible for some of the attacks in Gaza.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph28"><strong>Market attac</strong><strong>k</strong></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">At the same time Wednesday, back-to-back attacks on a market in northern Gaza killed 17 people, the Gaza health ministry said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph30"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2014/07/30/erin-sot-vause-gaza-market-attack.cnn&video_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FQSjKw1QThT">Video shot by the Gaza-based al-Manara media agency </a>show  ambulances racing to the scene after the first strike. Seconds later,  the second attack sends people diving for cover. The video shows people  on the ground, screaming and groaning. Some of the bodies are limbless,  others blown apart.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph32"><strong>Calls for civilian protection</strong></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph33">The conflict in Gaza is  more than three weeks old now and has left 1,373 people dead and more  than 7,000 wounded, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. About 70%  to 80% of the fatalities are Palestinian civilians, the U.N. estimates.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph34">On the Israeli side, 56 soldiers have died, as well as three civilians.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph35">The violence between  Israel's military and Palestinian militants is playing out against a  backdrop of failed humanitarian cease-fire attempts, with militants  firing rockets from Gaza into Israel and Israelis responding with  airstrikes.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph36">On Wednesday, Israel authorized a four-hour "humanitarian window" in Gaza, but it lasted nowhere near that long.</div><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="em6"></a><br /><br /><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph37">A large part of the criticism has been leveled at Israel and its airstrikes, which have bombarded Gaza.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph38">Chile, Peru, Brazil and Ecuador have pulled their ambassadors out of Tel Aviv to protest the Israeli offensive.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph39">Israel, in turn, has accused Hamas of hiding weapons, including rockets, in schools and launching attacks from near shelters.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph40">While saying Israel has a  right to defend itself, White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz  said, "We've also been very clear that Israel needs to do more to live  up to its own standards to limit civilian casualties."</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph41">It was a sentiment echoed by U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph42">"Hamas is taking steps here that put civilians at risk. But we do believe the Israelis need to do more," she said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph44"><strong>'This is a disaster'</strong></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph45">The incessant attacks and counterattacks are taking a terrible toll on Gazans.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph46">More than 219,000  Palestinians are packed into 86 shelters across Gaza, the U.N. said.  That equals about 12% of all of Gaza's population.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph47">A strike Tuesday  severely damaged Gaza's only power plant, forcing residents to depend  almost entirely on small generators for electricty.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph48">Israel said it did not target the plant, and that a Hamas rocket may have been to blame.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph49">Clean water is inaccessible for most. And some 3,600 people have lost their homes.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph50">"We cannot supply  electricity" for hospitals, sewage treatment or domestic use, said Fathi  al-Sheikh Khalil, deputy chairman of the Palestinian Energy Natural  Resources Authority in Gaza. "This is a disaster."</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph51">The Israeli foreign  ministry said it sent 43 trucks carrying 750 tons of food, medicine and  supplies to Gaza on Wednesday. It also said it sent fuel.</div>