Israel resumed on Sunday ground-sea-air attacks on Gaza following a short-lived "humanitarian truce" that gave a chance to civilians to examine their damaged or destroyed properties and seek safer places.
Local radio stations reported artillery bombardment targeting locations close to Rafah and Al-Maghazi camp. Early today, a Palestinian woman and a boy died, succumbing to serious injuries they had sustained during recent attacks on the strip.
Up to 1,049 Palestinians have been killed and 6,000 others have been wounded since flare-up of the hostilities nearly 20 days ago, according to Palestinian officials.
In Israel, sirens blared as the Palestinian gunners in Gaza fired new volleys of rockets on Israeli settlements and towns. A spokesman of the Israeli Army said two rockets crashed into an uninhabited location near Tel Aviv. One of the incoming rockets was intercepted by the anti-missile Iron Dome network.
He said an Israeli soldier died in a mortar shell explosion in southern Israel, bringing death toll suffered by the military to 43 since launch of the Israeli offensive on Gaza on July 8th.
Israeli military machine had pounded the densely-populated strip with a hail of shells and missiles, killing many civilians, including children, razing to the ground scores of houses, buildings and stores.
During the latest lull, rescuers retrieved dead bodies of up to 150 Palestinians who had been killed in the latest round of heavy bombardment of the enclave.
TV footages have shown horrific scenes of totally devastated buildings in several locations in Gaza, with shell-shocked civilians sifting through heaps of rubble for some belongings. Some of the heaviest destruction was seen in Al-Shujaieh where some of the fiercest clashes had taken place between the assaulting troops and Palestinian militants using guerrilla war tactics in confronting the heavily-armed Israeli forces.
At front of the fighting are fighters of Izz-Eddine Al-Qassam and Al-Quds Brigades, military arms of the Islamic movement Hamas and the other Islamic group, Islamic Jihad, respectively. The militants have employed various arms in the fighting such as short and medium range missiles, some of which have reached as sar as Tel Aviv, and anti-armor rockets as well as sniper guns. Israel has employed tanks, artillery and jet fighters.
Hamas, the most influential group in the strip, has linked its respect to a viable truce to lifting the long-time siege of Gaza and Israel insists it will carry on the offensive till annihilation of the militants' arsenal of missiles and offensive capacities.