IDF presses on with offensive

A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces said on Thursday that the military had called up more reservists in order to give a break to some of those already involved in operations in the Palestinian territory.

"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," the spokeswoman told the AFP news agency.

The move comes a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet agreed to press on with its air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip, which Israel says is aimed at destroying tunnels used by Hamas and other Islamist militant groups in the Palestinian territory.

At the same time, though, Israel also sent a delegation to Cairo, where Egyptian officials have been trying for weeks to broker a truce between the Jewish state and Hamas.

Officials in Gaza have said that more than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed, most of them civilians, since Israel launched what began strictly as an air campaign on July 8. Fifty-six Israeli soldiers, two civilians and one Thai national have also been killed.

UN condemns school attack

Meanwhile, the United Nations has condemned the latest attack on one of its schools, which killed at least 15 people on Wednesday.

"It is outrageous. It is unjustifiable. And it demands accountability and justice," United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.

The head of the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees, Pierre Krähenbühl, expressed "anger and indignation" over the attack, saying that the agency had informed the IDF 17 times that the school was filled with civilians.

"Enough is enough," Krähenbühl told the Associated Press news agency.

Israel has said that none of its forces had intentionally targeted any UN facility during Wednesday's operation. It said that its forces had returned fire after having been attacked by militants operating near the school.

There was no immediate comment from the IDF on a separate incident on Wednesday, in which 17 people were killed in an attack on a produce market in the Shijaiyah neighborhood of Gaza City.

There was no immediate sign that either side was prepared to stop the fighting, with Islamist militants also continuing to fire rockets at Israel throughout Wednesday.

However, a senior Israeli military official indicated that this could change in the foreseeable future. Major-General Sami Turgean, chief of Israeli forces in Gaza, said on Wednesday that the IDF were "but a few days away from destroying all the attack tunnels" used by Hamas and its allies.

pfd/hc (Reuters, AP, AFP)