Day 8: Hope for ceasefire fades as Israel and Hamas resume strikes (LIVE BLOG)

Signing off

This live blog is now closed. We will continue coverage tomorrow.

Heartbreaking images of conflict

GlobalPost's Timothy McGrath is documenting images from the Gaza conflict that are too graphic for many US news outlets to publish.

Numbers don't convey the horror of what's happening right now in Gaza. Neither do most of the photographs you'll find in news media. Streets and buildings have been blasted to rubble, yes. People are broken and mourning. Those things must be documented. But too often, we hide from the most graphic scenes of violence and death.

Here's his latest update:

The Huffington Post's Middle East correspondent Sophia Jones has been covering the crisis in Gaza. In her dipatch today, she describes the scene on the ground:

Read her story here. 

How Hamas and IDF are using Twitter to win hearts and minds

GlobalPost's Timothy McGrath examines how the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas are presenting the conflict on their Twitter feeds.

While their rockets fly in the air, Hamas and the IDF are also battling in the cloud. Both groups are savvy social media operators with active Twitter and Facebook pages, and they are using their English-language feeds to wage the important battle for hearts and minds around the world.

Read his pieces here:

This is what Hamas wants you to believe about its current conflict with Israel

and here:

This is what the Israeli army wants you to believe about its current conflict with Hamas

Israel to 'expand and intensify' Gaza campaign, Netanyahu says

Agence France-Presse — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged on Tuesday to ramp up Israel's military campaign against Gaza, after an Egyptian truce plan failed to end eight days of cross-border fire.

"This would have been better resolved diplomatically, that's what we tried to do when we accepted the Egyptian truce proposal today," he said of the conflict which has so far resulted in 194 Palestinian and one Israeli deaths.

"But Hamas leaves us no choice but to expand and intensify the campaign against it," Netanyahu said.

Also, there are reports of Netanyahu firing Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon:

The first Israeli casualty

Agence France-Presse is reporting that an Israeli was killed in rocket fire from Gaza. 

From the story:

A rocket fired from Gaza killed an Israeli civilian on Tuesday, the army said, the first Israeli death in eight days of cross-border violence.

The man was fatally wounded near the Erez crossing into Gaza, the army said.

A spokesman for the Israeli emergency services told AFP the 38-year-old was delivering food to soldiers serving in the area.

Turkish PM says Israel's 'tyranny will not remain unaccounted for'

Reuters — Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of "terrorizing the region" with its bombardment of Gaza and likened an Israeli politician to Hitler in a broadside likely to further strain fragile relations between the two countries.

Israel on Tuesday resumed its assault on Gaza, six hours after an Egyptian-proposed ceasefire failed to halt the firing of rockets by Palestinian militants into Israeli territory.

"With utter disregard for international law, Israel continues to terrorize the region, and no country but us tells it to stop," Erdogan told members of his ruling AK Party at a speech in parliament on Tuesday.

"No tyranny is everlasting, sooner or later every tyrant has to pay the price…This tyranny will not remain unaccounted for," he added.

And Middle East Envoy Tony Blair met Israeli President Shimon Peres.

Israeli President Shimon Peres at a press conference with Middle East Envoy Tony Blair on July 15, 2014 in Jerusalem, Israel.

Here's the video of the press conference recorded earlier, via the Guardian.

"Egypt…has put forward a plan, give it a chance to work," Tony Blair – Middle East peace envoy on Gaza conflict http://t.co/EJ25xf8r8z

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) July 15, 2014

Iron Dome intercepts Gaza strikes

According to reports from GlobalPost senior correspondent Noga Tarnopolsky, Israel's Iron Dome defense system has intercepted multiple missile strikes from Gaza.

More from her Twitter feed:

UN agency says destruction in Gaza is 'immense'

Agence France-Presse — The UN aid agency for Palestinians on Tuesday described the damage wrought by Israel's air offensive on Gaza as "immense," with more than 500 homes razed.

"The level of human losses and destruction in Gaza is really immense," said UNWRA spokesman Sami Mshasha.

The death toll on Tuesday had risen to 192, according to local officials in Gaza. Mshasha said that 560 homes had been totally destroyed, while thousands of buildings had suffered damage. Mshasha said that 47 UNRWA facilities had also been damaged by bombing.

A total of 17,000 people had found refuge in 20 schools run by the UN agency, which has sent their GPS coordinates to Israeli authorities.

A Palestinian man rests on school desks as families gather at a UN school after evacuating their homes near the border at the Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on July 15, 2014.

"Gaza's water system has been deteriorating for years. The latest attacks are the last straw. Safe drinking water is becoming increasingly scarce in the Strip, just as temperatures are soaring," said ICRC water and sanitation expert Guillaume Pierrehumbert. 

"Water is becoming contaminated and sewage is overflowing, bringing a serious risk of disease."

Hamas is reportedly reviewing Egypt's ceasefire agreement

After a brief respite, Israel and Hamas resume air strikes 

From Agence France-Presse:

Israel accepted an Egyptian proposal to hold fire Tuesday after a week-long campaign in Gaza, but warned Hamas it would hit back even harder if the rocket fire does not stop. 

In an early-morning vote, Israel's security cabinet said it would accept an Egyptian ceasefire which went into force at 0600 GMT, despite Hamas rejecting the initiative.

But the calm was short-lived, with sirens sending tens of thousands running for cover along Israel's Mediterranean coast as militants fired rockets at the densely-populated plain.

Israeli bomb disposal experts and civilians inspect damages after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip hit a yard outside a house in the southern port city of Ashdod on July 15, 2014.

Israel carried out at least two air strikes in Gaza on Tuesday afternoon, AFP correspondents and eyewitnesses said. An AFP correspondent reported one air strike in Gaza City, and eyewitnesses reported a second in the southern Khan Yunis area.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry warned on Tuesday of the "great risks" of spiraling violence between Israel and the Gaza Strip and called on Arab nations to push Hamas to accept a ceasefire.

"There are great risks in what is happening there and the potential of an even greater escalation of violence," Kerry told reporters in Vienna, as he wrapped up two days of talks on Iran's nuclear program.

Kerry said he had decided to cancel a planned trip to Egypt and return to Washington in order to give an Cairo-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Gaza time to work.

So far, the conflict has claimed 192 Palestinian lives, with rights groups saying well over two-thirds were civilians.

Signing off

This live blog is now closed. We will continue coverage tomorrow.

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's remarks

Here are some highlights from the speech given by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Al-Aqsa TV:

Egypt tries to broker truce

According to Agence France-Presse, Egypt has proposed a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to begin tomorrow at 0600 GMT.

From the piece:

The proposal late on Monday came on the eve of a scheduled visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry to Egypt, a traditional broker in Palestinian-Israeli conflicts, to push for a halt to seven days of exchanges that have left 184 Gazans dead. There was no immediate reaction from Israel or Hamas, which have both said they are not yet prepared to accept a ceasefire.

US warns against Israeli ground invasion of Gaza

Agence France-Presse — The United States on Monday warned against any Israeli ground invasion of Gaza, saying it would put even more civilians at risk than are currently in the crossfire of attacks on Hamas.

But the White House stopped short of criticizing Israel over the civilian toll so far in Gaza of the offensive, saying the government had a "right" and "responsibility" to defend their citizens against rocket attacks.

"Nobody wants to see a ground invasion because that would put more civilians at risk," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said during his daily press briefing. It was the first time that the White House has specifically warned in a public forum against a full Israeli invasion of Gaza, though other US officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, have previously said Washington would not like to see such a step.

The comments apparently reflect growing US concern over a possible escalation of the conflict, which Washington has offered to use its regional leverage to mediate. Earnest said that Washington remained concerned about civilian casualties and called on both sides to minimize them.

But he declined to answer a question as to whether Israel, which has used the US-built Iron Dome system to shoot down Hamas rockets, was using appropriate force, given the rising casualty figures among civilians in the Gaza Strip. 

Meanwhile, Amnesty International called on the US to "suspend transfers of munitions, weapons, crowd control devices, and military training to Israel." Read more on the organization's blog. 

Gaza death toll hits 177

Agence France-Presse — The death toll from Israel's seven-day air campaign against Gaza militants rose to 177 on Monday, as a UN official said more than a quarter of those killed were children.

So far, more than 1,280 have been wounded.

Relatives and friends mourn over the body of Musa Moamer, a 60-year-old Palestinian man killed in an Israeli air strike along with three members of his family, during their funeral in southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah on July 14, 2014.

Palestinians carry the body of Adham Abed el-Al, who died the day before in an Israeli airstrike, before his funeral on July 14, 2014 in Gaza City.

Um… 

Common ground? Foreign Policy magazine's Middle East Editor David Kenner just shared this interesting tidbit:

Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli soldiers

Via AFP/Getty photographer Jaafar Ashtiyeh — The scene at the Israeli maned checkpoint at the entrance of the northern Palestinian city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank:

Speaking of drones…

AFP/Getty photographer Jack Guez took this photo today of an Israeli soldier preparing to launch a Skylark I unmanned drone used "for monitoring purposes" near the Israel-Gaza border.

Unverified photos emerge of Hamas' drones

The New York Times has more details:

Hamas's military wing published a photograph that it says shows one of its drones. The image gives no direct indication of how big the aircraft is, what its capabilities are, where it came from or where or when the photo was taken. According to Jane's Defence Weekly, the Iranian-made Ababil-1 is nine and a half feet long, with a range of about 150 miles, and is able to carry up to 88 pounds of payload, such as explosives or camera equipment.

Read the full piece here.  

The key numbers 

The Economist has published a chart which provides good historical context on the current crisis. Take a look:

Here are Hamas' terms for a truce

Agence France-Presse — The Palestinian Hamas movement said Monday that it would not end hostilities with Israel without concessions by the Jewish state and that no serious efforts towards a truce had been made.

"Talk of a ceasefire requires real and serious efforts, which we haven't seen so far," Hamas legislative member Mushir al-Masri told AFP in Gaza City. Masri said Hamas would only negotiate on the basis of a set of concessions it wants to see Israel agree to.

Those include:

• The lifting of Israel's blockade on the Gaza Strip
• The opening of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt
• The release of Palestinian prisoners Israel has rearrested after freeing them in exchange for kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit

"Any ceasefire must be based on the conditions we have outlined, nothing less than that will be accepted," Masri said. In Cairo, a Hamas official said a general framework had been agreed, and that the group was committed to achieving more than it did in the truce deal that ended the last major round of violence with Israel in 2012.

"We need to build on the 2012 truce and move forward. We don't want to go back," he said. 

Reports of rocket striking Sderot

From GlobalPost Senior Correspondent Noga Tarnopolsky's Twitter feed:

Also, sirens are going off in Tel Aviv:

Protesters against Israel's Gaza offensive are arrested in India

As we reported in our live blog last week, there have been numerous protests across the globe against Israel's military operation in Gaza.

Haaretz reported today that Indian police arrested demonstrators outside the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi, India.

Indian protestors shout anti-Israeli slogans during a demonstration against Israeli attacks on Gaza outside the Israeli embassy in New Delhi on July 14, 2014.

Israel downs drone near Ashdod

There are reports of Israel downing an unmanned drone from Gaza near the Israeli city of Ashdod.

More details from our news partner NBC News:

And Al Jazeera:

Lebanon fires rockets at Israel, drawing Israeli fire

Reuters — Rockets were fired at Israel from southern Lebanon on Monday, drawing retaliatory artillery fire from Israeli forces, Lebanese security officials and the Israeli army said, in the third such rocket attack from Lebanon since Friday.

An Israeli police spokeswoman said there was no immediate word of damage or casualties from the rocket fire.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Lack of coordination leaves US-Palestinians stuck in Gaza

Buzzfeed's Middle East correspondent Sheera Frenkel is reporting that hundreds of US-Palestinian dual citizens are stranded in Gaza.

Arab League urges international protection for Gaza

Agence France-Presse — The Arab League has called on the international community to end Israeli air strikes on Gaza and to protect Palestinians, ahead of a foreign ministers' meeting later Monday.

The call, in a report to be submitted to the ministerial meeting, comes as Israel pressed its campaign of punishing raids on Gaza into a seventh day on Monday, and the Palestinian death toll rose to 172, with another 1,230 wounded.

The Arab League "affirmed the necessity of urgent steps for an immediate end to the Israeli aggression on Gaza and providing protection for the Palestinians," the report said.

Israeli "air strikes on Gaza have become a matter that cannot be met with silence any more," it said. The pan-Arab organization "demands that the international community intervene through its legal and humanitarian institutions to protect the Palestinian people."

The call echoes a demand by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority is based. The Israeli campaign was launched in response to rocket fire from Gaza.

So far, no Israelis have been killed since the operation began on July 8, despite 777 rockets hitting Israel and more then 200 others intercepted, the army says.

The Arab League meeting comes amid intense international efforts to broker a truce, and with Abbas seeking UN intervention. The Arab response has been lacklustre compared with its reaction to an eight-day war in 2012, when it sent Arab ministers to visit the besieged enclave in a show of support. An Egyptian foreign ministry statement said Monday's meeting, due to begin at 1900 GMT, "is aimed at finding a solution to stop the shedding of Palestinian civilians' blood and to formulate a common Arab stance on the issue."

So far, efforts to secure a ceasefire have been unsuccessful, with Cairo taking more hands-off approach than in 2012, when it brokered an end to the eight-day war.