Gaza toll escalates to 1766

The Israeli offensive which started July 8 on the Gaza Strip has killed 1,766 people and left 9,500 injured, the health ministry said Sunday.

"Two-thirds of the victims are civilians, including women, children and the elderly," Xinhua quoted the ministry as saying in a statement.

Meanwhile, the spokesman of the health ministry in Gaza, Ashraf al-Qedra said that 54 Palestinians were killed Sunday since midnight due to air strikes and shelling by tanks on various areas in the Gaza Strip.

He added that among the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip Sunday, ten were killed in an Israeli air strike on a school run by the UN for Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.

Al-Qedra said that what happened in the UNRWA school in Rafah "was a real massacre," adding that nine more Palestinians, who all belonged to one family, were killed in an air strike on their house in Rafah as well.

He also said that four other family members, including a child, were killed in another air strike on a house in the town of Rafah, and three more people were killed in an air strike on a house in northern Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, paramedics said that six Palestinians were killed in an air strike on a house in central Gaza Strip.

The Gaza-based al-Mizan rights group said in an emailed statement that more than 10,000 houses were damaged by the intensive Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip.

Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said in an emailed press statement that Israel is fully responsible for the air strike on the UNRWA school in Rafah, adding this is the third massacre at UNRWA schools.