From Washington, this is VOA news. Coming up, the death toll in Gaza on the rise. Latest on the downed Malaysian airliner in eastern Ukraine. Hello everyone, I'm Steve Norman.
Palestinian officials say the death toll in almost two weeks of Israeli bombardments of Gaza is now up to 425. They say more than 60 people were killed during Israeli military operations over the past 24 hours, making it the most deadly period since the conflict began on July 8th. VOA's Gabe Joselow reports. Military forces began pounding the Shijaiyah neighborhood overnight, leaving civilians dead in the streets and reducing buildings and infrastructure to rubble. An Israeli military spokesman, Captain Eytan Buchman, said Israeli forces faced heavy resistance from militants in the area. "This is not your standard Gaza suburb, this is a fortified area. There is literally an entire underground network, we discovered 10 terror tunnels dug underground. We encountered anti-tank missiles, RPGs and light-arms fire fired from windows and fired from residences inside of Shijaiyah." Israel is seeking to destroy the military capabilities of the Hamas Palestinian group that controls Gaza by targeting tunnels being dug into Israel and sites used to launch rockets across the border. Gabe Joselow, VOA news, Jerusalem. And the Israeli army says 13 of its soldiers were killed Sunday, bringing Israel's death toll to 18 soldiers and two civilians. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is blaming Hamas for the continuing fighting in the Gaza Strip. In a television interview on Sunday, the top U.S. [diplomatic] diplomat, that is, said Hamas militants have "stubbornly" refused to accept a cease-fire to stop the two-week-old conflict. "What they need to do is stop rocketing Israel and accept a ceasefire. Hamas needs to join up, be part of a solution." On NBC's "Meet the Press," Mr. Kerry defended Israel's right to defend itself against missiles that Hamas has fired into (the) Jewish territory, which sent ground forces into Gaza three days ago. He said Hamas "invited further actions" by the Israeli military. Secretary Kerry described the situation in Gaza as "ugly." He also used his Sunday TV appearances to talk about the deadly shoot-down of the Malaysian airliner in eastern Ukraine. Secretary Kerry said the evidence points to Russia supplying pro-Moscow separatists with a sophisticated anti-aircraft system and then training separatists to use it. "We ourselves track the imagery of the launch of this surface-to-air missile, of the disappearance of the aircraft from radar at that time. We know to a fact that the separatists bragged on the social media immediately afterwards about the shoot-down." Mr. Kerry condemned Russia on Sunday for what he called overwhelming evidence of complicity in Thursday's deadly shoot-down of the Malaysia airliner in eastern Ukraine. Meanwhile, pro-Moscow rebels claimed to have recovered data recorders from the doomed Malaysian Airlines flight 17. Also Sunday, rebels said they had taken control of 196 bodies recovered from the crash site and placed them in a refrigerated train car. They said the bodies will remain in the rebel-held town of Torez, 15 kilometers from the crash site until international investigators arrive. Heavy fighting around Libya's largest airport killed at least four people Sunday amid a grim resurgence of violence in the country as rival militias enter a second week of deadly clashes. The renewed battles between the Zintan militia, which controls Tripoli International Airport, and the armed Islamist fighters come two days after attempts at a cease-fire between the groups collapsed. Witnesses said fighting on Sunday spilled over into residential neighborhoods and also into the nearby area around the airport. Forty-five years ago on July 20th, 1969, man first walked on the moon (as) part of the historic Apollo 11 mission. Astronaut Neil Armstrong was the first person to step foot on the moon, followed by fellow astronaut Edwin Buzz Aldrin a few minutes later. NASA estimates that more than a half billion people worldwide watched the televised lunar landing. Astronauts returned to the moon on multiple missions. However, no human has touched down on the moon surface since 1972. And Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy wins the British Open. That's the latest world news from VOA. |