A Palestinian man inspects the rubble of destroyed buildings and houses in the Shejaiya residential district of Gaza City. Photograph: Mahmud Hams /AFP /Getty Photograph: Mahmud Hams/AFP /Getty Images
A Palestinian man inspects the rubble of destroyed buildings and houses in the Shejaiya residential district of Gaza City. Photograph: Mahmud Hams /AFP /Getty Photograph: Mahmud Hams/AFP /Getty Images
We're going to wrap up our live blog coverage for the day. Here's a summary of where things stand:
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu told Israelis to prepare for a longer military operation. "We will not hesitate to expand the Gaza operation," the defense minister said.
US and UN officials kept up calls for a ceasefire. More than 1,065 Palestinians have died so far in the conflict, according to health officials.
Ten Palestinians, including eight children, were killed in an attack on a park in Shita refugee camp in Gaza, health officials said. Harrowing images from the scene emerged.
The Israeli military denied responsibility for a strike near Shifa hospital in Gaza, blaming (an) errant Hamas rocket(s).
Nine Israeli soldiers were killed Monday, including four in a mortar attack on the Gaza border. 51 rockets and mortar shells were fired from Gaza Monday, according to Haaretz.
The US state department responded sternly to Israeli criticism of secretary of state John Kerry, saying, "it’s not the way partners and allies treat each other."
Israel vows to continue to act with force as nine children are killed in Gaza - video
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said on Monday that Israel will continue to act with force until its mission is accomplished. His comments came on a day when at least nine children were among those killed in an attack on a refugee camp in Gaza. Four Israeli soldiers were also killed in a Hamas attack in southern Israel. Guardian
The birthright program, which sponsors trips to Israel for young non-Israelis of Jewish descent, has dropped Tel Aviv from its itineraries, Haaretz reports:
Until now, visits to Tel Aviv, usually lasting one or two days, had been a key component of almost all Birthright itineraries. These visits typically included trips to the memorial where Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was slain and to Independence Hall, where Israel’s Declaration of Independence was read, as well as tours of the Old City of Jaffa.
Because of security concerns, Taglit-Birthright has also dropped almost all of southern Israel from its itineraries this summer. A spokeswoman for the organization said that the only place in the south that tour organizers were being allowed to include in their trips was a Bedouin village in the eastern part of the Negev.
As our live blog coverage continues, here's a summary of where things stand:
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu shelved talk of a ceasefire in Gaza in a brief address Monday in which he asked Israelis to prepare for a longer military operation.
Strikes on a refugee camp in Gaza killed 10, including eight children, health officials said. A separate strike hit an outpatient clinic near Shifa hospital. The Israeli military blamed Hamas rockets for the strikes. More than 1,065 Gazans have died in the current conflict.
Nine Israeli soldiers were killed Monday, the army said, including four killed in a mortar attack.
The US state department responded sternly to Israeli criticism of secretary of state John Kerry, saying, "it’s not the way partners and allies treat each other."
Harriet Sherwood reports that eight of the ten people killed in the attack on a Gaza camp were children:
Eight children playing in a Gaza refugee camp were killed, its main public hospital was struck, four Israelis were killed in a mortar attack' and militants from Gaza infiltrated Israel through a cross-border tunnel."
Shayma al-Sheikh Qanan, 23, was eight months pregnant when an Israeli tank shell hit her home in the central Gaza strip town of Deir al-Balah, reducing it to rubble. She was left in a critical condition. Her husband, a local radio journalist, was also badly wounded.
[...] The newborn was being looked after in the intensive care unit in another hospital in Khan Yunis to ensure her survival. Now four days old, she was breathing through an oxygen mask in the hospital's maternity ward. Abdel Karim al-Bawab, head doctor at the ward, said staff were keeping a close eye on the baby to monitor her condition. "Her vital signs are stable, but she must stay here in this state for at least three more weeks," he said.
Shayma Sheikh al-Eid lies in an incubator after doctors delivered her from the womb of her mother. Photograph: Abed Rahim Khatib /REX Photograph: Abed Rahim Khatib/REX
The Israeli military has released a statement saying five soldiers were killed Monday "in combat in the Gaza Strip", bringing the total killed in the conflict so far to 48:
Update: the number of soldiers killed Monday has grown to nine, the IDF says, releasing these details on five of those killed:
Staff Sergeant Moshe Davino, 20 years old from Jerusalem, was killed during combat in the southern Gaza Strip.
Additionally, 4 IDF soldiers were killed along the border of the Gaza Strip as a result of mortar fire.
The soldiers' families have been notified. Since the beginning of operation Protective Edge, 48 soldiers have been killed.
What's it like for families struggling to survive in Gaza? Palestinian author Atef Abu Seif describes the overcrowding and shortages – and the constant fear of death:
Life is getting complicated. You wish that you were simpler and could accept things more easily. My little girl, Jaffa, who is 19 months old, was utterly terrified in the first week of the war. We couldn’t bring ourselves to explain what the sounds of the explosions were, but she could easily understand the fear written on our faces when we heard each one. After a week, we started to tell her that these were the sounds of a door being closed quickly by Naem, her older brother. Jaffa accepted this and started to adapt to the situation. She even played with the idea. When hearing each explosion, she now shouts, “The dooooooor!”, and then calls out to Naem to stop slamming it. In Jaffa’s logic, someone is slamming a door to keep us all imprisoned in this situation. Each door slam is a door slammed shut on the opportunity for peace. Each cry from Jaffa to her brother Naem to stop shutting the door is fruitless.
Calls from the US and UN for an unconditional ceasefire appear to have been for naught. The state department announces a new strategy of mini ceasefires:
State department’s Jen Psaki: ”Our focus now is on short term ceasefires than can be built on each other.”
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