More than 170 Palestinians have been killed and some 1,200 have been wounded, mostly civilians, met today at the seventh day of the Israeli operation "protector Margin" in Gaza, while increasing calls for parties to declare an immediate cease-fire.
Since last midnight, four Palestinians were killed and about 60 injured in Israeli attacks are part of a punitive operation with which Israel seeks to end the firing of rockets into its territory.
A military spokesman told Efe that this morning militias have launched 75 rockets, 55 of which landed in uninhabited areas and at least 12 were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome system, while the rest fell into territory of Gaza.
Since the operation began, Israel has been hit by more than 800 rockets and 87 others were shot down in flight.
During the day today, especially at dawn, Israel has strongly attacked the northern Gaza and other Islamist positions, the growing fear among the civilian population.
Thousands of civilians abandoned their homes yesterday in the northern Gaza to go to safer areas in the south or center of the UN and other international organizations.
From Ramallah, the Palestinian government has asked the international community to protect its people and Israel to agree to an immediate cease-fire.
To that end, the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, today and tomorrow will travel to Cairo for talks with his Egyptian colleague, Abdelfattah Al Sisi, and ask a quick intervention to end the bloodshed.
"We are doing everything possible to this end (...) And if Israel does not want to stop, go back to the international community with the responsibility she has on an unarmed civilian population being bombed," said Department spokesman Negotiations Liberation Organization (PLO), Xavier Abu Eid.
In Israeli domestic political level, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has not decided to launch a ground incursion into Gaza, although everything is ready, which has generated complaints Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, and other right-wing politicians.
"If the operation ends now, we will be clear to all that is just a parenthesis before the fourth step, and it's not worth it," said the head of Israeli diplomacy.
Despite calls from nationalists in Israel increasingly more voices are heard, both from the left and from the right, calling the Executive Netanyahu to declare a ceasefire unilaterally.
They suggest that this margin would give the Palestinian president to negotiate a truce, benefit the deteriorating image of Israel in the world and would embarrass the Islamist movement Hamas as the party does not want the ceasefire.
In a show of force without much success, the Palestinian group this morning sent a drone into Israel that was shot down by a Patriot missile, the army said.
The "Brigades of al-Kasem Azedin", the armed wing of the Islamist movement, acknowledged sending three drones into southern Israel, with different missions that did not explain.
According to a statement released by the group in Gaza, Hamas says it has in its arsenal with three types of this device, which has been dubbed Ababil: AB1, developed for spy missions; AB2, designed to launch attacks, and AB3, a suicide glider.
"The three devices released today failed in both objectives pursued," said the Brigades, which did not detail what kind of "drones" or what missions it was developed.
The intercepted plane was headed to the Mediterranean port of Ashdod, about 30 kilometers north of the Gaza Strip, as he went down by Israeli anti-aircraft artillery.
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