Panic: Palestinians run for safety after the strike, as smoke rises from what used to be a house
Israel's latest round of attacks on Gaza entered its 47th day today, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to 'intensify' the air assault after an Israeli boy was killed yesterday in a mortar attack by Hamas militants.
Two Palestinian children were killed today, along with three adults from the same family. They join the more than 2,090 people killed in Gaza since attacks began in July. Close to 500 of those were children.


Israel has registered 68 casualties, 64 of them soldiers killed in Gaza after the Israeli Defence Force invaded the territory.
Hamas militants continued to fire rockets into Israel. Talks for a long-lasting truce have so far proven fruitless, with each side blaming the other every time temporary ceasefires have collapsed. 'Hamas will pay a heavy price for this': The site where Hamas mortar fire hit the Israeli agricultural community of Nahal Oz, close to the border with the Gaza Strip, killing a four-year-old Israeli boy
Responding to the death of a four-year-old Israeli boy in a village close to the Gaza border hit by Hamas rocket fire yesterday, Mr Netanyahu vowed the group, which runs Gaza, would pay a 'heavy price'.
'Netanyahu sends his condolences to the family of the 4 year old boy that was killed this afternoon by a mortar round fired by Hamas,' his spokesman Ofir Gendelman wrote on Twitter.
'PM: Hamas will pay a heavy price for this attack. IDF & ISA will intensify ops against Hamas until the goal of #ProtectiveEdge is achieved.'
Today Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas announced Egypt is to invite Israeli and Palestinian delegations to Cairo to resume peace talks, while Hamas pledged to support a Palestinian bid to join the International Criminal Court.
'Egypt is going to invite delegates to return to the negotiating table to consider a long-term truce,' Mr Abbas said after talks with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Deadly: Since the collapse of the ceasefire at least 17 Palestinians have died in Israeli attacks
A previous round of truce talks collapsed on Tuesday, shattering nine days of calm. Since then at least 17 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the UN figures released yesterday and reports in today.
HAMAS EXECUTES 18 PALESTINIANS FOR ALLEGED COLLABORATION
Hamas-led gunmen in Gaza yesterday executed 18 Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel.
The Independent Commission for Human Rights, a Palestinian rights group, said there were two women among those killed.
Masked militants dressed in black executed seven suspected collaborators, shooting the hooded and bound victims in a busy square outside a mosque.
The deaths followed the killing of 11 alleged informers at an abandoned police station.
The crackdown on suspected collaborators followed the killing of three of Hamas's most senior military commanders in an Israeli air strike on Thursday, an attack that required precise on-the-ground intelligence on their whereabouts.
The number of Palestinians forced to flee their homes has also continued to rise. The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that 460,000 Gazans - more than a quarter of the entire population of the strip - have now been displaced.
Eighty-four UN-run schools in the territory are now sheltering 292,000 people, and numbers were expected to exceed 300,000 soon. The rest have been housed with host families.
The United Nations Relief Works Agency, which provides assistance and protection to Palestinian refugees, yesterday warned it was reaching the limits of its abilities.
'With the military escalation in its 46th day and world attention turning towards other crises, the intensity of hostilities has reverted to the early days of the operation,' the agency said in a statement.
'Unlike at the beginning of the escalation, however, aerial bombardments occur during the daytime and west of the former buffer zone, where all of UNRWA shelters are located and where the majority of the Gaza population lives ...
'In response to this unprecedented escalation, UNRWA is essentially providing support to the entire population of the Gaza Strip.' Damage: A man inspects the living room of a house destroyed by the Israeli air strike that killed five people
Fears grew of a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza as two Hamas officials today revealed the group has signed a pledge to back any Palestinian bid to join the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Such a step could expose Israel - as well as Hamas - to war crimes investigations. Israel strongly opposes the involvement of the ICC.
Palestinian President Abbas has debated for months whether to join the court, a step that would transform his relations with Israel from tense to openly hostile and could also strain his ties with the United States.
The decision by Hamas to sign a document in support of a court bid removes a major obstacle, though it's not clear if Mr Abbas now will go ahead.
A hesitant Mr Abbas has said he would not make any decision without the written backing of all Palestinian factions. Last month, he obtained such support from all factions in the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
Hamas, which is not a PLO member, had said it would study the idea. Its decision to support the court option came after almost seven weeks of a deadly cross-border war with Israel and several failed cease-fire efforts. +21
Destruction: Four girls watch as men pick through what remains of a house that was struck last night
Since July 8, Gaza militants have fired more than 3,800 rockets and mortar shells at Israel, while Israel launched about 5,000 air strikes at Gaza, Israel's military said.
Israel has said it has targeted sites linked to militants, including rocket launchers and weapons. But UN and Palestinian officials say three-quarters of those killed in Gaza have been civilians.
On Saturday, an air strike on a house in central Gaza killed two women, two children and a man, according to medics at the Red Crescent. Six strikes also hit a house in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza, causing severe damage and wounding at least five people, Gaza police said.
Since the start of the Gaza war, Mr Abbas has come under growing domestic pressure to pave the way for a possible war crimes investigation of Israel. Last month, he told senior PLO officials and leaders of smaller political groups he would only go ahead if Hamas supports the bid.
If Mr Abbas were to turn to the court, Hamas could be investigated for indiscriminate rocket fire at Israel since 2000. Israel could come under scrutiny for its actions in the current Gaza war as well as decades of settlement building on illegally occupied territories. Accountability: Israel opposed the move, which means both both sides could be investigated for war crimes
Izzat Rishq, a senior Hamas official, said today that Hamas was not concerned about becoming a target of a war crimes investigation and urged Abbas to act 'as soon as possible.'
'We are under occupation, under daily attack and our fighters are defending their people,' he said in a phone interview from Qatar.
'These rockets are meant to stop Israeli attacks and it is well known that Israel initiated this war and previous wars.'
However, it is not clear if such arguments would hold up in court. After the last major round of Israel-Hamas fighting more than five years ago, a UN fact-finding team said both Israel and Hamas violated the rules of war by targeting civilians - Hamas by firing unguided rockets at Israel and Israel by using its high-tech, guided weaponry to wreak destruction in Gaza, one of the world's most densely populated urban areas.
Hamas' decision to back a court bid came after meetings on Thursday and Friday in Qatar between Mr Abbas and the top Hamas leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal.
Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas leader who participated in the meetings, wrote on his Facebook page early this morning that 'Hamas has signed the paper' of support Abbas had requested. Abu Marzouk's post was also reported on Hamas news websites.
There was no comment from Mr Abbas's aides. The past: A Palestinian man searches for his belongings amid the ruins of his house after it was destroyed
A senior Palestinian official has said Mr Abbas likely would wait for the findings of a UN-appointed commission of inquiry into possible Gaza war crimes - due by March - before turning to the court. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss internal deliberations with reporters.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined comment. Israel opposes involving the court, arguing that Israel and the Palestinians should deal with any issues directly.
A former International Criminal Court prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, told The Associated Press earlier this week that he believes drawing the court into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might be a positive step.
'I think the ICC could contribute to a solution' of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said.
He noted that the court, established in 2002, would only get involved if it determined that the two sides are not conducting their own credible investigations of alleged war crimes.
Turning to the International Criminal Court became an option for Abbas in 2012, after the U.N. General Assembly recognised 'Palestine' in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, lands captured by Israel in 1967, as a non-member observer state.
The upgrade to a state opened the door to requesting the court's jurisdiction in Palestine.

source:http://www.ralphcrown.com/2014/08/missiles-rain-down-on-gaza-strip.html