Israel strikes kill dozens as Gaza death toll soars

By
AFP
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Israel strikes kill dozens as Gaza death toll soars
GAZA CITY: Israeli strikes killed at least 13 women and children in Gaza on Tuesday, medics said, as the army announced the deaths of two more soldiers in the two-week conflict.

The fatalities, which were among nearly 40 on Tuesday alone, brought the total death toll to more than 600 Palestinians, according to Gaza´s emergency services, and 29 Israelis -- 27 soldiers and two civilians.

A child and three women, one of them pregnant, were killed in two separate Israeli air strikes in Zeitun, in the central Gaza Strip, and Beit Hanun, in the north, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.

An elderly woman and her brother were among those killed in three separate raids targeting Bureij and Al-Maghazi in central Gaza, and Rafah in the south.

And a series of Israeli air strikes early Tuesday killed seven people.

Tuesday´s toll included 10 women and three children, according to Qudra.

The Israeli army on Tuesday confirmed that a soldier, who Hamas militants claimed they had kidnapped, was dead and his body remains unaccounted for.

The army named the soldier, whose body is still missing, as Oron Shaul, two days after Hamas said they had kidnapped an Israeli soldier of the same name.

The Israeli military said two more of its soldiers had been killed in the fighting a day earlier, hiking the overall Israeli death toll to 29, among them 27 soldiers who died in the past four days.

Tuesday´s bloodshed pushed the total Palestinian toll to over 600 since the Israeli military launched Operation Protective Edge on July 8 in a bid to stamp out rocket fire from Gaza.

Two Israeli civilians have been killed since July 8 by cross-border rocket fire. (AFP)