I have always objected to Israel's nazi like occupation of the West Bank and it's economic strangle hold on the West Bank and Gaza. And I have always been disgusted with the Arab world's manipulation and neglect of the Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza. They have been used, abused and sacrificed on the battlefield by those guardians of Islam, the apostate saudi and Iranian rulers, and the greedy, self serving Persian Gulf kingdoms, and terrorist galore. With this latest round of fighting, sparked by the killing of three Jewish teenagers, then the revenge killing of a Palestinian youth, all senseless bloodshed, hamas has stepped up to inflame the region with rocket attacks on Israel resulting in air strikes against hamas fighters sheltering among, hiding behind children, women, the elderly, entire innocent families who are the collateral damage of war. hamas has generally been successful in deceiving and manipulating world opinion to believe the Palestinians are victims of Israeli genocide, but this time they have been caught in their lies. It was broadcast on ABC this afternoon that U.N. relief workers in Gaza found hamas rockets in U.N. schools, a direct violation of international law. With that hammas has shown the world they are cowardly terrorist, and until the people of Gaza demand an end to hamas terrorism they will continue to suffer and die and waste another generation of their childen. From +NPR and +ABC News and here is more on the Israeli - Palestinian conflict
Andrew Burton/Getty Images
Editor's Note: As an Israeli man was buried
near Tel Aviv and four Palestinian boys were laid to rest in the Gaza
Strip, NPR correspondents attended the funerals on opposite sides of the
war to see how people are coping with the conflict. Ari Shapiro reports
first from Israel, followed by Emily Harris in Gaza City.
The Yehud Cemetery is so close to the Tel Aviv airport, you practically have to duck when an airplane passes overhead.
On Wednesday, cars lined the road and buses navigated the narrow entrance to the graveyard, bringing hundreds of people to pay their last respects to Dror Hanin, a 37-year-old father of three and the first Israeli killed in the current round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
Alon Hackmon worked with Hanin and says he was always volunteering. Hanin was delivering care packages to soldiers Tuesday, when a mortar from Gaza struck and killed him near the boundary between Israel and the Palestinian territory.
"He was killed because he went over there, next to Gaza, to bring soldiers, to give them food, chocolate, give them some good time over there, and that's it," Hackmon said. "That's how he got killed."
For Israel, the first death in this conflict was a sort of national moment.
Israel's new president-elect, Reuven Rivlin, was at the funeral along with Cabinet ministers.
When Hanin's father arrived, weeping, politicians crowded around to embrace him.
"Helping people was his role in life," wailed the father.
For Karen Uzon, a friend of the family, this didn't seem like the first death in this chapter of the conflict.
"We are in the same war for 65 years, 66 years," she said, a reference to a feud that has been burning since the first Israeli-Arab war in 1948, the year of Israel's founding. "So it's not the first one and not the last one that I know closeup, so at least we need to stop the losing of life and we need peace."
There is sadness. But the overwhelming feeling seems to be exhaustion.
People want this conflict to end, and they are frustrated that they cannot see how it will.
One of the mourners, Judy Dresnick, kept repeating, "This is not normal."
"Every day I pray that this bomb won't be on my house and our kids will be safe," she says. "The situation is not normal."
The reason we attended two funerals — one in Israel, one in Gaza — was not to pit one tragedy against another or compare suffering.
We wanted to ask different people similar questions, to see how civilians on opposite sides of a decades-old conflict are responding to this round of violence and loss.
Israeli politicians talk about revenge and punishment. But almost none of the mourners said they wanted "blood for blood."
Dov Bar-Elan, a relative of Hanin, said, "Even if in our Bible it's written, I don't think so because we will take revenge, and then they will take revenge, and so on and so on and so on."
Still, some take Hanin's death as evidence that Palestinian militants only understand the language of violence.
Carmella Nahari's son was best friends with Hanin. She used to believe in talking. But not anymore.
"We have to find a partner to talk to, and Hamas is not [a partner]," she said.
Asked if she feels for the families and friends of the Palestinians who have died in Gaza, she says, "Yes, of course. [Hamas] is holding them like prisoners. They are suffering in Gaza as we are suffering here."
The hundreds of people who gathered for the funeral started to close in around the family. They joined together in saying kaddish, the mourners' prayer.
Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images
Emily Harris reports from Gaza City:
Just as Dror Hanin's funeral began near Tel Aviv, Israeli warplanes struck the beach at Gaza City's fishing boat pier. Twice.
Ambulances rushed to the beach, but four young boys were already dead. They were all cousins between the ages of 9 and 12, part of the extended Bakr family of fishermen. After the attack, gray smoke rose from a shack on the pier. One boy's body was pulled from the rubble. The three others were found on the sand.
Less than two hours later, hundreds of men gathered at a neighborhood mosque, removing their sandals and flip-flops before entering for short prayers over the bodies of the Bakr boys — Mohammad, Ismail, Zakariya and Ahed.
The mourners then shuffled out quietly, while a crowd of young men carried the bodies high over their heads outside. The dead boys were covered with sheets, just their small faces showing. The crowd broke into religious chants.
The Bakr family cemetery was just a short walk away. Mohammad Bakr cried as the body of his 12-year-old son, Ismail, was carried past him.
"They were just collecting, playing on the beach, washing themselves on the beach," he said. "They are just children. What would such small children do? They don't have any weapons. What would they do? Why would they target them?"
When asked if it's time for a cease-fire, he said it's too late.
"We don't want a cease-fire. What cease-fire are you talking about?" he said. "I want the cost of our kids' blood. Yesterday we wanted cease-fire. Now, no. We don't want it."
In the crowd, a short boy with long eyelashes said neighborhood kids kept swimming at the beach even during the fighting in recent days. The young men's chanting turned overtly political.
"Netanyahu, you coward," they chanted, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "Gazans will never be humiliated."
Watching nearby, Mohammad Ezz, a father of three, said he does want the fighting to stop. But he does not want to surrender.
"We want a cease-fire. But we cannot trust the Israelis," he said. "They are asking to dismantle the weapons of the resistance in the Gaza Strip. I don't mind that in principle. But they don't keep their promises. If we throw our weapons into the sea, they'll come attack us later on."
More than 200 people have died in Gaza over the past nine days of fighting. Israel says the target at the beach on Wednesday was operatives from Hamas, and the army is investigating the episode.
The survivors included four more Bakr cousins who had also been on the beach when the airstrikes hit. Araby Bakr, 11, said the boys were playing a favorite game — "Arabs and Jews."
Much like "cops and robbers," the teams are enemies. They use sticks as pretend guns and take turns chasing each other and putting opponents in "jail."
In this case, the jail was near the shack on the fishing pier that was hit by the Israeli airstrike. One boy who died had been playing a Jew, captured in the game.
Palestinians call people killed in the conflict with Israel "martyrs."
"If all you have to do is play Arabs and Jews to be a martyr," Arabiy Bakr said, "maybe I'll be a martyr soon too."
Mohammad Abu Watfa, 23, was one of three people wounded Wednesday in the attack.
Lying on a lacy white pillow in the hospital, he touched a bandage on the left side of his abdomen. He said he was at his family's café down the beach and ran to help after the first airstrike. He was caught in the second.
His brother-in-law Abu Yazan Bardah says this flareup in fighting has taken a deep toll on Gaza.
"Too many people have been killed on our side," he said.
He also said he knows how to end it.
"If the Israeli occupation ends, the problem will solve itself," he said.
Israel withdrew all its soldiers and Jewish settlers in Gaza back in 2005, but it still controls the flow of goods and people in and out of the small, overcrowded territory.
For Bardah, "ending the occupation" means giving Palestinians real control over themselves and some land.
The four boys were buried on a patch of Gaza close to where they died, by the sea.
You can follow Ari Shapiro @arishapiro and Emily Harris @emilygharris.
Ariel Schalit/AP
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the army to send ground forces into Gaza Thursday night.
"We are hearing reports that so far the operation has been concentrated in the north," reports NPR's Emily Harris, who is in Gaza.
Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas, called the invasion "a dangerous step. "The occupation will pay its price expensively, and Hamas is ready for confrontation," he said in a statement.
People in northern Gaza told Harris that "there's lots of shelling there." But people in the southern part of the Gaza Strip are also attempting to take what cover they can, if only moving to central parts of their homes, away from walls and windows.
"As tanks shelled into the east, Israeli navy boats opened fire on the west, hitting the beaches of Gaza," BuzzFeed . "Israeli officials said it was a two-pronged attack aimed at clearing the way for ground troops to move into Gaza in the largest incursion since 2008."
Harris said on All Things Considered that it's not yet clear where the Israeli infantry may be operating.
She noted that Israel is targeting tunnels Hamas uses to infiltrate its territory. Earlier on Thursday, Israeli aircraft bombed a group of Palestinian fighters who had tunneled under the border.
"The tunnels are both a very real and symbolic problem for Israel," Harris said. "It's some militants' way into israel and that is something Israel's military is going to try to concentrate on in this invasion."
Netanyahu's office instructed the army to prepare for the
offensive after Hamas rejected a cease-fire proposal from Egypt, The
Associated Press reports.
The army has not provided details about the scope of the operation or the number of troops involved. A statement from the Israeli military did say the operation will include "infantry, armored corps, engineer corps, artillery and intelligence combined with aerial and naval support."
The IDF's Southern Command is leading the ground offensive, to the Jerusalem Post. The army has called up 18,000 more reservists.
"In light of the despicable and relentless aggression by Hamas and the dangerous infiltration into Israel, Israel is obliged to protect its citizens," the prime minister's office said in a statement.
Sirens could be heard across Israel, to Barak Ravid, diplomatic correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
"We are seeing many, many people coming to the hospital, and these are just the ones that can get here," Walid Taha, a surgeon at Gaza's Shifa Hospital, told BuzzFeed. "We don't know how many won't be able to reach us tonight."
As we , the death toll in Gaza from Israeli airstrikes had climbed above 220 prior to the nighttime offensive.
On Thursday, Israel and Hamas both observed a five-hour cease-fire to allow humanitarian aid to reach Gaza.
The brief truce also allowed banks to reopen and some infrastructure repair work to be done, according to Robert Turner, director of operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza City.
"It was the first time I saw a traffic jam for nine days in Gaza," Turner told NPR's Audie Cornish.
"There was hope this could be a first step toward a broader cease-fire," he added. "That's certainly not happening tonight."
Israel's Security Cabinet will meet Friday morning to discuss the situation.
Lefteris Pitarakis/AP
This post was updated at 4:10 p.m. ET: Ground Offenses Begin
Israel has sent ground forces into Gaza on Thursday, which we are covering in .
Update at 1:15 p.m. ET: Hostilities Resume
A temporary cease-fire had brought relative quiet to Gaza for a few hours earlier in the day, as Israel and Hamas agreed to hold their fire for five hours, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. local time, for humanitarian reasons. The peace was marred by a mortar attack around noon. There was been no indication that Israel retaliated.
With the temporary truce over, Hamas has fired 10 rockets at Israel and Israel launched two airstrikes at the Gaza Strip, Israeli security officials say. We've updated this post to reflect that the cease-fire has ended.
Our original post continues:
An Israeli army spokesman said three mortars landed in southern Israel but did no damage, Linda Gradstein tells our Newscast unit. She adds that it wasn't clear whether Hamas or a smaller Palestinian faction trying to disrupt the cease- fire was responsible.
"The cease-fire was requested by Robert Serry, the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East, in order to allow aid into the Gaza Strip," reports Israeli newspaper .
Residents used the break to rush for supplies at markets, visit hospitals and conduct business at banks.
In Gaza, the death toll from Israeli airstrikes has climbed above 220 — a number that includes in a bombardment on a beach Wednesday.
From Jerusalem, NPR's Ari Shapiro reports:
Mourners weep during the funeral of Dror
Hanin at a cemetery on Wednesday in Yahud Monoson, Israel. Hanin, who
was hit by a Palestinian mortar, was the first Israeli to be killed in
the current round of fighting. More than 200 Palestinians have been
killed.
The Yehud Cemetery is so close to the Tel Aviv airport, you practically have to duck when an airplane passes overhead.
On Wednesday, cars lined the road and buses navigated the narrow entrance to the graveyard, bringing hundreds of people to pay their last respects to Dror Hanin, a 37-year-old father of three and the first Israeli killed in the current round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
Alon Hackmon worked with Hanin and says he was always volunteering. Hanin was delivering care packages to soldiers Tuesday, when a mortar from Gaza struck and killed him near the boundary between Israel and the Palestinian territory.
"He was killed because he went over there, next to Gaza, to bring soldiers, to give them food, chocolate, give them some good time over there, and that's it," Hackmon said. "That's how he got killed."
For Israel, the first death in this conflict was a sort of national moment.
Israel's new president-elect, Reuven Rivlin, was at the funeral along with Cabinet ministers.
When Hanin's father arrived, weeping, politicians crowded around to embrace him.
"Helping people was his role in life," wailed the father.
For Karen Uzon, a friend of the family, this didn't seem like the first death in this chapter of the conflict.
"We are in the same war for 65 years, 66 years," she said, a reference to a feud that has been burning since the first Israeli-Arab war in 1948, the year of Israel's founding. "So it's not the first one and not the last one that I know closeup, so at least we need to stop the losing of life and we need peace."
There is sadness. But the overwhelming feeling seems to be exhaustion.
People want this conflict to end, and they are frustrated that they cannot see how it will.
One of the mourners, Judy Dresnick, kept repeating, "This is not normal."
"Every day I pray that this bomb won't be on my house and our kids will be safe," she says. "The situation is not normal."
The reason we attended two funerals — one in Israel, one in Gaza — was not to pit one tragedy against another or compare suffering.
We wanted to ask different people similar questions, to see how civilians on opposite sides of a decades-old conflict are responding to this round of violence and loss.
Israeli politicians talk about revenge and punishment. But almost none of the mourners said they wanted "blood for blood."
Dov Bar-Elan, a relative of Hanin, said, "Even if in our Bible it's written, I don't think so because we will take revenge, and then they will take revenge, and so on and so on and so on."
Still, some take Hanin's death as evidence that Palestinian militants only understand the language of violence.
Carmella Nahari's son was best friends with Hanin. She used to believe in talking. But not anymore.
"We have to find a partner to talk to, and Hamas is not [a partner]," she said.
Asked if she feels for the families and friends of the Palestinians who have died in Gaza, she says, "Yes, of course. [Hamas] is holding them like prisoners. They are suffering in Gaza as we are suffering here."
The hundreds of people who gathered for the funeral started to close in around the family. They joined together in saying kaddish, the mourners' prayer.
Palestinians weep at the funeral Wednesday
for four boys, ages 9 to 12 and all cousins from the extended Bakr
family. They were killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza City.
Just as Dror Hanin's funeral began near Tel Aviv, Israeli warplanes struck the beach at Gaza City's fishing boat pier. Twice.
Ambulances rushed to the beach, but four young boys were already dead. They were all cousins between the ages of 9 and 12, part of the extended Bakr family of fishermen. After the attack, gray smoke rose from a shack on the pier. One boy's body was pulled from the rubble. The three others were found on the sand.
Less than two hours later, hundreds of men gathered at a neighborhood mosque, removing their sandals and flip-flops before entering for short prayers over the bodies of the Bakr boys — Mohammad, Ismail, Zakariya and Ahed.
The mourners then shuffled out quietly, while a crowd of young men carried the bodies high over their heads outside. The dead boys were covered with sheets, just their small faces showing. The crowd broke into religious chants.
The Bakr family cemetery was just a short walk away. Mohammad Bakr cried as the body of his 12-year-old son, Ismail, was carried past him.
"They were just collecting, playing on the beach, washing themselves on the beach," he said. "They are just children. What would such small children do? They don't have any weapons. What would they do? Why would they target them?"
When asked if it's time for a cease-fire, he said it's too late.
"We don't want a cease-fire. What cease-fire are you talking about?" he said. "I want the cost of our kids' blood. Yesterday we wanted cease-fire. Now, no. We don't want it."
In the crowd, a short boy with long eyelashes said neighborhood kids kept swimming at the beach even during the fighting in recent days. The young men's chanting turned overtly political.
"Netanyahu, you coward," they chanted, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "Gazans will never be humiliated."
Watching nearby, Mohammad Ezz, a father of three, said he does want the fighting to stop. But he does not want to surrender.
"We want a cease-fire. But we cannot trust the Israelis," he said. "They are asking to dismantle the weapons of the resistance in the Gaza Strip. I don't mind that in principle. But they don't keep their promises. If we throw our weapons into the sea, they'll come attack us later on."
More than 200 people have died in Gaza over the past nine days of fighting. Israel says the target at the beach on Wednesday was operatives from Hamas, and the army is investigating the episode.
The survivors included four more Bakr cousins who had also been on the beach when the airstrikes hit. Araby Bakr, 11, said the boys were playing a favorite game — "Arabs and Jews."
Much like "cops and robbers," the teams are enemies. They use sticks as pretend guns and take turns chasing each other and putting opponents in "jail."
In this case, the jail was near the shack on the fishing pier that was hit by the Israeli airstrike. One boy who died had been playing a Jew, captured in the game.
Palestinians call people killed in the conflict with Israel "martyrs."
"If all you have to do is play Arabs and Jews to be a martyr," Arabiy Bakr said, "maybe I'll be a martyr soon too."
Mohammad Abu Watfa, 23, was one of three people wounded Wednesday in the attack.
Lying on a lacy white pillow in the hospital, he touched a bandage on the left side of his abdomen. He said he was at his family's café down the beach and ran to help after the first airstrike. He was caught in the second.
His brother-in-law Abu Yazan Bardah says this flareup in fighting has taken a deep toll on Gaza.
"Too many people have been killed on our side," he said.
He also said he knows how to end it.
"If the Israeli occupation ends, the problem will solve itself," he said.
Israel withdrew all its soldiers and Jewish settlers in Gaza back in 2005, but it still controls the flow of goods and people in and out of the small, overcrowded territory.
For Bardah, "ending the occupation" means giving Palestinians real control over themselves and some land.
The four boys were buried on a patch of Gaza close to where they died, by the sea.
You can follow Ari Shapiro @arishapiro and Emily Harris @emilygharris.
Israeli forces have launched a "ground phase" in its effort to halt rockets being fired at Israel from Gaza, the Israeli military said today.
The incursion into Gaza "will include close coordination between
[Israel's] units including infantry, armored corps, engineer corps,
artillery, and intelligence combined with aerial and naval support," the
Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
The Israeli army said the offensive is meant to strike a "significant blow to Hamas' terror infrastructure."
Until today the battle has consisted of Hamas, which controls Gaza,
launching rockets at Israel and Israel targeting what it calls terrorist
sites in Gaza with fighter jets and naval guns. Israel twice halted its
attacks and has been negotiating with Hamas for a more permanent
ceasefire in Cairo, Egypt.
The IDF said today it sent troops into Gaza "Following 10 days of Hamas
attacks by land, air and sea, and after repeated rejections of offers to
deescalate the situation."
The location of the "ground phase" and the number of troops involved was
not immediately available, but an IDF spokesman called it "a large IDF
force." The IDF also said it was throughout the Gaza Strip and that
there was no time limit for the operation.
"Hamas terrorists are operating underground, and that is where the IDF
will meet them. The IDF intends to impair Hamas’ capability to attack
Israel,” the Israeli military said.
Israel had called up 48,000 reservists in recent weeks and the Israeli
cabinet today authorized the call-up of 18,000 more reservists, bringing
the total to 64,000, the IDF said. Many of the troops had been massed
with tanks near Gaza's border. Israel had also warned tens of thousands
of people in Gaza to evacuate their homes for their own safety.
The slugfest between Hamas and Israel has left 243 Palestinians dead and
1,850 wounded. One Israeli has been killed and several injured.
Gaza had started the day with a rare break in attacks as both sides
observed a five hour "humanitarian pause" to allow Gazans to stock up on
supplies. But the moment the five hour deadline arrived, a mortar round
fired from Gaza hit Israeli territory, the IDF said. Israel resumed its
own bombing campaign a short time later, according to the IDF.
In the hours before the Israeli incursion, powerful flares fired by
Israel lit up the sky over Gaza, ABC News correspondents in Gaza
reported. Foreign media in a hotel near the waterfront in Gaza were told
by Israel they had to evacuate the building and tracer fire could be
seen hitting sites in Gaza.
Israel last carried out a major ground offensive in Gaza in January 2009.
Earlier today, the IDF said that it thwarted an attack by 13 Gaza
militants who sneaked into Israel through a tunnel. Lt. Col. Peter
Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said the militants were
identified about 820 feet inside Israel and were struck by Israeli
aircraft. Lerner said the military believed at least one militant was
killed in Thursday's strike. He said the remaining fighters appeared to
have returned to Gaza through the tunnel.
This was the second time militants infiltrated Israel from Gaza. Israel
killed four militants last week who entered from the sea.
Also today, a United Nations agency said it found 20 rockets hidden in a school it runs in Gaza.
The munitions were discovered Wednesday, the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency said in a statement posted on its site today.
"In the course of the regular inspection of its premises, UNRWA
discovered approximately 20 rockets hidden in a vacant school in the
Gaza Strip," the agency said.
UNRWA, which supplies shelter and humanitarian aid in Gaza, condemned
the storage of the weapons in its school and said, " This incident,
which is the first of its kind in Gaza, endangered civilians including
staff and put at risk UNRWA’s vital mission to assist and protect
Palestine refugees in Gaza."
It said that they "informed the relevant parties and successfully took
all necessary measures for the removal of the objects in order to
preserve the safety and security of the school."
The agency didn't identify the location of the school, the types of rockets or who the "relevant parties" were.
The announcement bolstered Israeli claims that Hamas has used schools,
mosques and medical facilities as shields as it fires rockets at Israel.
The battle has broken a two-year lull in hostilities between Israel and
Hamas and was triggered by the slaying of three Israeli teens and
revenge burning death of a Palestinian teen. Angry protests escalated to
rocket launches and retaliatory air strikes.
Israeli soldiers ride on military vehicles near the Israel-Gaza border on Thursday
"We are hearing reports that so far the operation has been concentrated in the north," reports NPR's Emily Harris, who is in Gaza.
Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas, called the invasion "a dangerous step. "The occupation will pay its price expensively, and Hamas is ready for confrontation," he said in a statement.
People in northern Gaza told Harris that "there's lots of shelling there." But people in the southern part of the Gaza Strip are also attempting to take what cover they can, if only moving to central parts of their homes, away from walls and windows.
"As tanks shelled into the east, Israeli navy boats opened fire on the west, hitting the beaches of Gaza," BuzzFeed . "Israeli officials said it was a two-pronged attack aimed at clearing the way for ground troops to move into Gaza in the largest incursion since 2008."
Harris said on All Things Considered that it's not yet clear where the Israeli infantry may be operating.
She noted that Israel is targeting tunnels Hamas uses to infiltrate its territory. Earlier on Thursday, Israeli aircraft bombed a group of Palestinian fighters who had tunneled under the border.
"The tunnels are both a very real and symbolic problem for Israel," Harris said. "It's some militants' way into israel and that is something Israel's military is going to try to concentrate on in this invasion."
Listen to story Part 1
The army has not provided details about the scope of the operation or the number of troops involved. A statement from the Israeli military did say the operation will include "infantry, armored corps, engineer corps, artillery and intelligence combined with aerial and naval support."
The IDF's Southern Command is leading the ground offensive, to the Jerusalem Post. The army has called up 18,000 more reservists.
"In light of the despicable and relentless aggression by Hamas and the dangerous infiltration into Israel, Israel is obliged to protect its citizens," the prime minister's office said in a statement.
Sirens could be heard across Israel, to Barak Ravid, diplomatic correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
"We are seeing many, many people coming to the hospital, and these are just the ones that can get here," Walid Taha, a surgeon at Gaza's Shifa Hospital, told BuzzFeed. "We don't know how many won't be able to reach us tonight."
As we , the death toll in Gaza from Israeli airstrikes had climbed above 220 prior to the nighttime offensive.
On Thursday, Israel and Hamas both observed a five-hour cease-fire to allow humanitarian aid to reach Gaza.
The brief truce also allowed banks to reopen and some infrastructure repair work to be done, according to Robert Turner, director of operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza City.
"It was the first time I saw a traffic jam for nine days in Gaza," Turner told NPR's Audie Cornish.
"There was hope this could be a first step toward a broader cease-fire," he added. "That's certainly not happening tonight."
Listen to story Part 2
A Palestinian municipality worker sweeps the
street as a United Nations vehicle drives past a damaged money exchange
post. Israel and Hamas took a break from fighting Thursday for
humanitarian reasons.
Israel has sent ground forces into Gaza on Thursday, which we are covering in .
Update at 1:15 p.m. ET: Hostilities Resume
A temporary cease-fire had brought relative quiet to Gaza for a few hours earlier in the day, as Israel and Hamas agreed to hold their fire for five hours, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. local time, for humanitarian reasons. The peace was marred by a mortar attack around noon. There was been no indication that Israel retaliated.
With the temporary truce over, Hamas has fired 10 rockets at Israel and Israel launched two airstrikes at the Gaza Strip, Israeli security officials say. We've updated this post to reflect that the cease-fire has ended.
Our original post continues:
An Israeli army spokesman said three mortars landed in southern Israel but did no damage, Linda Gradstein tells our Newscast unit. She adds that it wasn't clear whether Hamas or a smaller Palestinian faction trying to disrupt the cease- fire was responsible.
"The cease-fire was requested by Robert Serry, the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East, in order to allow aid into the Gaza Strip," reports Israeli newspaper .
Residents used the break to rush for supplies at markets, visit hospitals and conduct business at banks.
In Gaza, the death toll from Israeli airstrikes has climbed above 220 — a number that includes in a bombardment on a beach Wednesday.
From Jerusalem, NPR's Ari Shapiro reports:
An Israeli delegation visited Cairo today, to hold talks with Egyptian officials who are trying to broker a more permanent peace deal to end the fighting that started early last week. A delegation from Hamas was also present — but in a different section of the same hotel, reports , Egypt's representatives shuttled between the two groups."Today people are mourning the death of four children who were playing on the beach when they were killed in an Israeli attack. Israel has not offered details of the incident, beyond saying that it had targeted terrorist activity.
"The military also reports that today it stopped about a dozen militants who were trying to attack Israel via a tunnel underneath the Gaza border."
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