2.40 pm: France FM calls for urgent truce as Gaza death toll tops 300
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called Saturday for an "urgent" truce in Gaza and renewed support for an Egyptian initiative accepted by Israel but spurned by its Hamas foes.
Fabius issued the call at a Cairo press conference after talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is rallying international support for Cairo's ceasefire proposal.
2.18 pm: Israel troops clash with Gaza militants at border
Israel pounded Hamas rocket launchers, uncovered more than a dozen cross-border tunnels and engaged in gunbattles with Palestinian militants Saturday on the second day of its open-ended ground operation in Gaza, as the Palestinian death toll there topped 300.
The Israeli military said that during its first 24 hours on the ground troops were mostly staying close to the border area and had discovered 13 tunnels into Israel — some as deep as 30 meters (yards) — that could be used to carry out attacks.
The military also said that in 12 days of fighting it has hit 2,350 targets in Gaza, including 1,100 rocket launchers, and severely diminished the arsenal of Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls the coastal territory.
Militants have meanwhile fired more than 1,600 rockets since the latest round of fighting began on July 8. Rocket fire continued overnight, including one that landed in a residential neighborhood in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, causing no injuries.
"We have struck hard on the two main strategic assets of Hamas: the rockets and these tunnels," said Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner.
Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra said overnight airstrikes raised the death toll from the 12-day offensive to more than 310 Palestinians, many of them civilians and about a fifth of them children. An Israeli soldier was killed after the start of the ground operation, likely from friendly fire, and an Israeli civilian was killed earlier this week.
Israel says it has encountered little resistance on the ground so far, and has killed about 20 militants in sporadic gunbattles. Three soldiers were wounded in overnight fighting, one seriously, the military said.
12.30 pm: Five bodies pulled out of rubble of destroyed home
The bodies of five Palestinians were pulled from the rubble of a home destroyed in an overnight Israeli air strike on southern Gaza, medics said on Saturday.
The bodies were recovered from an area east of Khan Yunis, raising the death toll in Gaza from 12 days of violence between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas to 312, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.
9.30 am: China calls for ceasefire in Gaza
China has appealed for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza Strip between Israel and Palestine's Hamas and avoiding of any military ground operations and other actions that may lead to further escalation of the crisis.
Liu Jieyi, China's permanent representative to the UN, made the appeal at an emergency meeting of the Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, Xinhua reported.
"We urge parties concerned to immediately cease hostilities, withdraw their ground troops from Gaza, completely lift the blockade against Gaza and give access to UN and other international humanitarian aid agencies so as to ease the misery of the local population."
"In spite of repeated calls from the international community, Israel has continued with its large scale aerial bombardments against Gaza and has launched a ground invasion into Gaza leading to heavy civilian causalities including those of women and children," Liu said
8.25 am: Israel press ahead with ground offensive as death toll tops 300
Israeli forces on Saturday pressed ahead with a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, where Palestinian militants kept firing rockets deep into Israel's heartland, pushing the death toll past 300 in almost two weeks of conflict.
Palestinian officials said 65 Palestinians, at least 15 of them under the age of 18, have been killed since Israel sent ground forces on Thursday into the densely populated enclave of 1.8 million Palestinians.
During that time, more than 135 rockets have been fired from Gaza, though many were shot down by Israel's Iron Dome missile-defense shield, including some over the country's commercial capital Tel Aviv, causing no casualties.
The Israeli military said it killed 17 Palestinian gunmen while 21 others surrendered and were taken for questioning after the infantry and tank assault began in the territory dominated by the Islamist Hamas.
One Israeli soldier was killed in an apparent friendly fire incident, the military said, and several other troops were wounded in the ground operations. It said some 240 targets, including 21 concealed rocket launchers and 10 tunnels, have been attacked.
U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday he had spoken to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, underscoring Washington's support for Israel to defend itself but raising concerns about "the risks of further escalation" and additional loss of innocent lives.
"We are hopeful that Israel will continue to approach this process in a way that minimises civilian casualties," Obama told reporters at the White House.
-- updates for 18 July --
10:04 pm: Israel PM says expansion of Gaza assault possible
Israeli troops pushed deeper into Gaza on Friday to destroy rocket launching sites and tunnels, firing volleys of tank shells and clashing with Palestinian fighters in a high-stakes ground offensive meant to weaken the enclave's Hamas rulers.
The assault opens a new, potentially extended and bloodier stage in the conflict following a 10-day Israeli campaign of more than 2,000 airstrikes against Gaza that had failed to halt relentless Hamas rocket fire on Israeli cities. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he told his military to prepare for a possible "significant" expansion of the operation.
The government said its goal is to stop rocket attacks, destroy the network of Hamas tunnels into Israel and weaken Hamas militarily. But there are calls from hard-liners in Israel to completely crush Hamas and drive it from power in Gaza. That could mean a longer operation with the danger of mounting casualties in a conflict that has already seen more than 274 Palestinians killed in Gaza, around a fifth of them children.
9:00 pm: Obama encourages Israel to minimize civilian death
President Barack Obama is encouraging Israel to try to minimize civilian deaths in its ground push into Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Obama says he talked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Friday about the Gaza operation and reaffirmed Israel's right to defend itself. He told reporters at the White House that no nation should accept rockets being fired into its borders.
Israel's movement follows a 10-day campaign of more than 2,000 airstrikes that had failed to halt relentless Hamas rocket fire on Israeli cities.
Israel stepped up its campaign after the Islamic militant group refused to accept an Egyptian truce offer.
8:30 pm: Israeli ground assault pushes deeper into Gaza
Israeli troops pushed deeper into Gaza on Friday to destroy rocket launching sites and tunnels, firing volleys of tank shells and clashing with Palestinian fighters in a high-stakes ground offensive meant to weaken the enclave's Hamas rulers.
The assault opens a new, potentially extended and bloodier stage in the conflict following a 10-day Israeli campaign of more than 2,000 airstrikes against Gaza that had failed to halt relentless Hamas rocket fire on Israeli cities.
The government said its goal is to stop rocket attacks, destroy the network of Hamas tunnels into Israel and weaken Hamas militarily. But there are calls from hard-liners in Israel to completely crush Hamas and drive it from power in Gaza. That could mean a longer operation with the danger of mounting casualties in a conflict that has already seen at least 265 Palestinians killed in Gaza, around a quarter of them children.
Israel had been reticent about launching a ground offensive for fear of endangering its own soldiers and drawing international condemnation over mounting Palestinian civilian deaths.
3:36 pm: 265 dead as Israel expands ground operation
The death toll in Gaza hit 265 on Friday as Israel pressed a ground offensive on the 11th day of an assault aimed at stamping out rocket fire, medics said.
And an Israeli soldier was killed during the launch Thursday night of land operations on the edges of the Gaza Strip, raising the death toll on the Israeli side to two, the army said.
The latest death was that of a man killed near Beit Hanun at the northern end of the Gaza Strip, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said, raising Friday's toll to 24 dead.
Medics also found the body of a man killed in a strike south of Gaza City. Another Palestinian died in Shejaiya, east of Gaza City, Qudra said.Earlier, four other Palestinians were killed in several attacks on Beit Hanun, two of them by Israeli tank fire shortly after midnight.
Earlier, two men from the Shami family were killed in the southern city of Khan Yunis.
And four members of another family died in another strike on the city, he said. Also in Khan Yunis, three people were killed by tank fire.
A five-month-old baby was among five Gazan killed in separate Israeli attacks on the southern city of Rafah.
2:55 pm: Israel to expand ground operation in Gaza, says Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday he had ordered the military to prepare for a possible significant expansion of the ground operation against Gaza militants.
In his first public remarks since the operation began late on Thursday, Netanyahu said air strikes alone could not deal a significant blow to the network of tunnels used by Hamas militants to stage cross-border attacks on southern Israel.
"My instructions and those of the defence minister to the military, in accordance with security cabinet's approval, is to prepare for the possibility of a significant broadening of the ground activity," he told ministers at a special cabinet session at the defence ministry in Tel Aviv.
"Last night our forces began a ground operation to hit the terror tunnels crossing from Gaza into Israel's territory," he said.
"It is not possible to deal with the tunnels only from the air (so) our soldiers are doing that also on the ground."
In his remarks, Netanyahu referred to an attempted attack on Thursday by 13 Gaza militants who managed to infiltrate southern Israel by tunnel before being spotted by the army.
One of the militants was killed in an air strike and the rest retreated into the tunnel, thwarting what Netanyahu said would have been a "mass attack" on Israeli civilians.
Netanyahu said he had only ordered the troops in after several attempts to reach a ceasefire had failed.
"We chose to launch this operation after exhausting the last options," he said.
10:54 am: Netanyahu to make statement on Gaza, meet security cabinet
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will make a statement on the Gaza crisis as 0800 GMT before meeting with the security cabinet at Tel Aviv Military headquarters,Reuters correspondent Dan Williams reported.
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