US ups pressure on Israel as UN demands Gaza truce

The Security Council resolution came during a lull in fighting in Gaza early Monday, the beginning of the Muslim Eid al-Fitr festival, after a day of strikes and counter-strikes.
 
The 15-member Council released a statement urging a truce during Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.
 
It expressed "strong support" for an "immediate and unconditional humanitarian ceasefire."
 
It also voiced "grave concern regarding the deterioration in the situation as a result of the crisis related to Gaza and the loss of civilian lives and casualties."
 
At least 1,032 Palestinians have died in the fighting as well as 43 Israeli soldiers and three civilians.
 
Obama, too, voiced concern at the civilian toll, in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday in which he urged an immediate ceasefire.
 
Violence continued in Gaza on Monday morning, although overall the Strip was experiencing relative calm.
 
A rocket from Gaza fell in an open area in Ashkelon, according to an Israeli army statement.
 
The army said it "retaliated towards Beit Lahiya area."
 
Israeli media said later that an Israeli soldier was lightly to moderately injured in a gun battle in northern Gaza.
 
Additionally, Israeli warplanes targeted al-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, a Ma'an reporter in Gaza said.
 
Two Israeli artillery shells also hit the Tal al-Hawa area in southern Gaza City.
 
There were no immediate reports of injuries.
 
An Israeli army statement said that forces targeted "2 concealed rocket launchers and a weapon manufacturing site in the northern and central Gaza Strip."
 
Obama: Immediately end hostilities
 
According to a White House statement, the US president "made clear the strategic imperative of instituting an immediate, unconditional humanitarian ceasefire that ends hostilities now and leads to a permanent cessation of hostilities based on the November 2012 ceasefire agreement" brokered by Egypt.
 
He also stressed the need to "ensure the disarmament of terrorist groups and the demilitarization of Gaza," while reiterating "serious and growing concern about the rising number of Palestinian civilian deaths and the loss of Israeli lives."
 
The two sides had observed a 12-hour humanitarian pause on Saturday, giving Gaza medics a chance to pull bodies from rubble they had not been able to reach under fire.
 
But Hamas rocket fire prompted Israel to abandon an extension of that truce Sunday, and subsequent Hamas calls for another ceasefire were ignored by both sides.
 
During Sunday, fighting renewed apace, as Israel pounded Gaza with aerial, naval and artillery bombardments and Hamas rained more rockets down on Israeli territory.
 
A controversial incident on Thursday when a UN school acting as a shelter was shelled, killing 15 people, drew fierce condemnation from Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA.
 
The Israeli army confirmed on Sunday it had hit the school, but said it was a "single errant mortar" round, denying that people were killed "as a result of (army) operational activity."
 
There was no immediate response from UNRWA, which sent a team to conduct its own investigation on Friday, but was impeded from doing so due to "gunfire around the school."
 
"The Israeli army had been notified in advance about the composition of the team, the time and purpose of the visit," UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said on Twitter.
 
"We again underline our call for an immediate and comprehensive investigation," Gunness said.
 
Meanwhile Obama's Secretary of State John Kerry was still working for Israel and Hamas to agree to further halts in the bloodshed ahead of hoped for Egypt-led peace talks, a US official said.
 
Israel rejected a Kerry-proposed ceasefire last week and Hamas has resisted truce efforts by Cairo after the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and banned the Muslim Brotherhood, a Hamas ally.
 
Crippling blockade
 
Israeli officials insist that they will continue the mission to destroy Hamas tunnels they say are used to launch attacks on Israel, and Hamas wants a lifting of the crippling Gaza blockade that has been in place for eight years.
 
A military spokeswoman told AFP that since the July 8 start of its military operation, over 2,000 rockets and mortar shells fired from Gaza hit Israel, with another 492 intercepted.
 
Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said his group could not coexist with Israel as long as it occupied Palestinian land.
 
"We are not actually fighting the Jews because they are Jews," he said in remarks broadcast Sunday. "We fight the occupiers."
 
"I'm ready to coexist with the Jews, with the Christians and the Arabs and non-Arabs," he said. "However, I do not coexist with the occupiers."
 
Palestinian representative to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, expressed disappointment with Monday's Security Council statement, saying it fell short of a formal resolution demanding that Israel withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip.
 
"They should have adopted a resolution a long time ago to condemn this aggression and to call for this aggression to be stopped immediately," said Mansour following the emergency meeting.
 
"We are disappointed in that sense," he said,
 
Rights groups say the vast majority, some 80 percent of Palestinians killed, have been civilians.