Gaza ground fight rages

Pushing cease-fire, Kerry cites progress

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Jerusalem, Wednesday, July 23, 2014. Kerry is meeting with Ban, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as efforts for a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel continues. (AP Photo/Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Jerusalem, Wednesday, July 23, 2014. Kerry is meeting with Ban, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as efforts for a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel continues. (AP Photo/Pool)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli troops battled Hamas militants on Wednesday near a southern Gaza Strip city as the top U.S. diplomat reported progress in efforts to end the fighting that has so far killed more than 700 Palestinians and 34 Israelis.

But as international negotiators shuttled around the Middle East in a bid to end the bloodshed, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said his group would not relent without an end to an Israeli-Egyptian blockade against it, calling Palestinians "the true owners of the land."

On the ground Wednesday, Israeli troops backed by tanks and aerial drones clashed with Hamas fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on the outskirts of Khan Younis, killing at least eight militants, according to a Palestinian health official.

Hundreds of people fled their homes as the battle unfolded, flooding into the streets with what few belongings they could carry, many with children in tow. They said they were seeking shelter in nearby United Nations-run schools.

"The airplanes and airstrikes are all around us," said Aziza Msabah, a resident of the city. "They are hitting the houses, which are collapsing upon us."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who met for the second time this week with U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, flew to Israel on an Air Force jet Wednesday despite a ban imposed a day earlier by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on commercial flights into Ben-Gurion Airport because of Hamas rocket fire nearby. The FAA extended the ban Wednesday, and many major European carriers also canceled more flights because of security concerns.

After the talks, Kerry was optimistic.

"We certainly have made steps forward," he said without elaborating. "There's still work to be done."

Israel has insisted it must substantially curb the military capabilities of the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza -- a position that has gained the support of U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Ben Cardin, D-Md. -- while Hamas has demanded the lifting of a crippling Israeli and Egyptian blockade on the impoverished coastal territory it has ruled since 2007.

Mashaal said in a televised speech that the opening of the border crossings was a red line.

"When it comes to the balance of power in this crisis between us and Israel, they are the executioners, the aggressors, the occupiers, the settlers, and we are the true owners of the land," he said from his home in exile in Doha, Qatar. "We will not accept anything but the end of the siege."

Yasser Abed Rabbo of the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee agreed with Mashaal on the need to end the blockade.

"The demands of Gaza to end the aggression and lift the blockade are the demands of the entire Palestinian people," he said in a statement read on Palestinian television.

The U.S., Israel and the European Union all consider Hamas a terrorist organization, though the U.N. does not. Ban said he and Kerry were jointly lobbying officials in the region to push Hamas and Israel to a cease-fire as soon as possible.

White House deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken said there must be a way forward that does not involve Hamas having the ability to "rain down rockets on Israeli civilians."

"One of the results, one would hope, of a cease-fire would be some form of demilitarization so that this doesn't continue, doesn't repeat itself," Blinken said. "That needs to be the end result."

The Hamas leader, however, rejected that idea. "Some are talking under the table about disarming the resistance. No one can take away the resistance's arms," Mashaal said.

Israel and the U.S. back an unconditional cease-fire proposal that was offered by Egypt, which would be followed by talks on a possible new border arrangement for Gaza.

U.S. officials have downplayed expectations for an immediate, lasting truce between Israel and Hamas. But Kerry said Wednesday that limited progress had been made.

"We're doing this for one simple reason: The people in the Palestinian territories, the people in Israel, are all living under the threat or reality of immediate violence," Kerry said after a meeting with Abbas in the West Bank town of Ramallah. "And this needs to end, for everybody. We need to find a way forward that works. And it's not violence."

He also offered "profound gratitude" to what he described as 30,000 Israelis who lined Jerusalem streets on Wednesday for the funeral procession of Israeli soldier Max Steinberg, a 24-year-old American from the San Fernando Valley of Southern California who was killed in the fighting. "That's a remarkable statement -- we're very grateful," Kerry said.

Kerry later met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for nearly two hours in Tel Aviv but made no comments and headed immediately back to Cairo.

Investigation authorized

As the fighting continued and the death toll rose Wednesday, the U.N.'s top human-rights official demanded that all sides in the two-week war in the Gaza Strip refrain from indiscriminate attacks on civilians, warning that violations may amount to war crimes.

The warning by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay came at a special meeting of the U.N.'s top human-rights body, which voted 29-1 to authorize an international commission of inquiry to investigate all alleged abuses since mid-June in the Gaza Strip.

Only the United States voted against the resolution championed by Arab nations. An additional 17 of the Human Rights Council's 47 member-states abstained.

Israel launched an air campaign July 8 to stop Hamas rocket fire into Israel and expanded it last week to a ground war aimed at destroying tunnels the military says Hamas has constructed from Gaza into Israel for attacks against Israelis. At least 74 Palestinians were killed on Wednesday and early today, raising the overall Palestinian death toll in the 16-day war to 702, according to Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra.

Israel said five more of its soldiers were killed, raising the military's death toll to 32. Two Israeli civilians also have died, and a Thai worker in Israel was killed when a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed near the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon on Wednesday, police spokesman Luba Samri said.

An Israeli airstrike demolished a home in Gaza's Shijaiyah neighborhood, killing 30-year-old journalist Abdul Rahman Abu Hean, his grandfather and a nephew, according to health officials and relatives.

Israel said the Human Rights Council's decision to investigate Israel's role in the conflict sent a message to extremist groups around the world that using human shields -- which it accuses Hamas of doing -- was an "effective strategy."

"The Human Rights Council must start to investigate Hamas' decision to turn hospitals into command bases and schools into weapons warehouses and to place rocket batteries near playgrounds, private homes and mosques," said a statement from the Israeli prime minister's office.

Israel on Wednesday struck the Wafa hospital in Gaza City, which the military said housed a Hamas command center. Basman Ashi, the medical center's director, said all 97 patients and staff members were evacuated after Israeli warnings and that no one was hurt in the attack.

Meanwhile, the U.N. secretary-general said he was "alarmed" to hear that rockets were placed in a U.N.-run school in Gaza and that "subsequently these have gone missing."

A statement by the spokesman for Ban Ki-moon expressed the U.N. chief's "outrage" at the incident and demanded that militant groups stop such actions and should be held accountable for endangering civilians.

No details on the number or kind of rockets were given. The location of the school was not given.

But the Hamas leader dismissed the assertions that it puts civilians in danger by hiding weapons and fighters in civilian areas.

"The truth is that Netanyahu could not reach the militants, so killed the civilians," Maashal said.

More flights canceled

Israel has launched more than 3,300 airstrikes since the conflict began, and more than 2,250 Palestinian militant rockets have been fired at Israel. The Israeli toll from the rocket strikes has been minimized by the success of the "Iron Dome" defense system, but it has not been 100 percent.

Fears about the continued fighting led the U.S. and many European airlines to cancel more flights to the airport in Tel Aviv.

Germany's two largest airlines, Lufthansa and Air Berlin, extended their cancellations through today, and Air France said it was suspending its flights "until further notice."

The European Aviation Safety Agency late Tuesday said it "strongly recommends" that airlines refrain from operating flights to and from Tel Aviv. It said it would "monitor the situation and advise on any update as the situation develops."

The European agency acted after the FAA prohibited American-based airlines from flying to the airport after a Hamas rocket explosion nearby.

Israel insists the airport is secure, crediting its missile defense system known as Iron Dome. Netanyahu said the FAA decision "gives Hamas' terror a prize."

President Shimon Peres of Israel agreed Wednesday.

"The real answer is not to stop flights but to stop the rockets," Peres said. "If airlines will submit to terror, then they invite more rocket fire and a greater danger not just here but across the world."

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg landed at the airport Wednesday night on Israel's national carrier, El Al, in a bid to show it is safe to fly to Israel.

"Halting flights here -- when the airport is safe -- hurts Israel and rewards Hamas for attacking Israel. Hamas wants to shut down the airport. We can't let that happen," Bloomberg said after arriving and being greeted by Netanyahu. He said the U.S. decision was "an overreaction" and said Israel has the right to defend itself.

Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz on Wednesday questioned the motives behind the FAA decision.

"The facts suggest that President Obama has just used a federal regulatory agency to launch an economic boycott on Israel, in order to try to force our ally to comply with his foreign-policy demands," Cruz said in a statement in which he posed five questions about the agency's action, including whether it was politically motivated.

Cruz said later Wednesday that he would block Senate confirmation on all State Department nominees until his questions were answered.

State Department spokesman Marie Harf called the Texas senator's comments "ridiculous and offensive." She said the FAA makes its "decision based solely on the security and safety of American citizens, period."

Catherine Frazier, a spokesman for Cruz, said the Obama administration's foreign policy was itself "ridiculous and offensive."

Protest in Paris

Meanwhile, days after two banned pro-Gaza protests degenerated into violence, thousands of demonstrators marched Wednesday through Paris under the eye of hundreds of riot police in a legal protest.

With banners featuring slogans such as "Boycott Israel" and "Israel Murderer," demonstrators tested a government grappling with how best to allow freedom of expression while containing violence -- and hate speech against France's Jews.

Jewish leaders say vocal anti-Semitic chants in previous demonstrations and several attacks on synagogues reflect rising anti-Semitism in Europe.

France has western Europe's largest Jewish and Muslim populations, and the Middle East conflict often means rocketing tensions in France.

"Today we are here for Palestine because we find Israel shameful, because children are dying, and it's unbearable to see all this," said Fatima El Fetoui, 56.

Wednesday's demonstrators said they were not anti-Semitic -- they simply opposed Israel's actions against Gaza.

"You just need to differentiate between Jews and Israel. What we are fighting is the Zionist state. I am not fighting the Israelis," said Vincent Santoro, 24.

In two banned demonstrations last weekend, in Paris and the northern suburb of Sarcelles, groups of youths pillaged stores and attacked police.

Two synagogues in Paris were attacked July 13.

Information for this article was contributed by Ibrahim Barzak, Tia Goldenberg, Aya Batrawy, Frank Jordans, John Heilprin, David Rising, Matthew Knight and staff members of The Associated Press and by Michael R. Gordon and Jodi Rudoren of The New York Times.

A Section on 07/24/2014

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