GAZA STRIP : Palestinians pray over the bodies of nine people during their funeral in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip Saturday. — AFP GAZA CITY, July 19 (agencies): Israeli air strikes and shelling killed more than 25 people across Gaza Saturday, among them children, raising the toll in 12 days of violence to 337, medics said.
The latest deaths included a 20-year-old man in southern Gaza's Khan Yunis, and a 16-year-old killed in Rafah, also in southern Gaza, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.
Another two men were killed east of Deir al-Balah, he added.
Their deaths followed those of five members of the Zuweidi family, including two girls aged two and six years old, in Gaza's northern Beit Hanun.
Four men were also killed in two separate air strikes in northern Gaza's Beit Lahiya, Qudra added, along with one person killed in the Qarara district of southern Khan Yunis.
Another three men were killed in an air strike in central Gaza, he added.
The new deaths raised the toll in Gaza on the 12th day of violence between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas to 337 people.
Earlier, Qudra also reported five bodies had been pulled from a home hit by an Israeli air strike in Khan Yunis.
Two Israeli civilians and one Israeli soldier have been killed since the campaign started on July 8, and several wounded.
The soldier was killed by friendly fire, the army told Israeli media.
Some 2,385 Palestinians have been wounded, Qudra said.
Operation Protective Edge is the bloodiest conflict in the besieged coastal enclave since 2009.
Israel launched its ground offensive late Thursday, starting a new phase in the operation which it said was aimed at destroying tunnels used by the territory's dominant power, Islamist movement Hamas. UN chief Ban Ki-moon headed to the region to join truce efforts.
His peace push came as Israel was poised to intensify a ground operation inside the besieged Palestinian territory it says is necessary to stop militants tunnelling into the Jewish state.
Despite the pounding, Palestinian commandos succeeded in infiltrating Israel, sparking a deadly skirmish with an army patrol, as Gaza's bloodiest conflict since 2009 showed no siigns of letting up.
The United States urged its Israeli ally to do more to limit the high civilian death toll from the operation, while supporting the Jewish state's right to defend itself.
President Barack Obama said Washington was "deeply concerned about the risks of further escalation and the loss of more innocent life".
He added that Washington was "hopeful" that Israel would operate "in a way that minimises civilian casualties".
But Israeli army chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz, said the army was "expanding the ground phase of the operation".
"There will be moments of hardship," he warned in a briefing to the military, anticipating further Israeli casualties.
Troops killed a Palestinian militant who tunnelled into southern Israel but others managed to withdraw back into Gaza, an army statement said.
"Several terrorists infiltrated Israel through a tunnel from the central Gaza Strip," it said, adding that they fired a machine gun and anti-tank missile at an army patrol.
Meanwhile, the UN said Ban would leave for the region Saturday to help Israelis and Palestinians "end the violence and find a way forward," under-secretary-general for political affairs Jeffrey Feltman told the Security Council.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the military to be ready for "a significant broadening of the ground activity".
He said the ground operation was necessary to deal with the tunnels, but admitted there was "no guarantee of 100 percent success".
In Gaza, after a relative lull Friday, violence picked up again in the evening, with intensifying tank shelling and air strikes killing more than a dozen people.
A six-year-old child and five members of a single family, including girls aged six and two, were among at least 38 people killed on Saturday, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA has opened 44 of its schools to shelter those fleeing homes in the most heavily bombarded areas.
Gaza was also struggling with a 70 percent power outage after electricity lines from Israel were damaged, officials said.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who was also in Cairo to join peace efforts, called for an urgent truce.
Hamas has rejected Egyptian proposals for a truce, demanding an easing of a harsh Gaza blockade imposed by Israel in 2006 and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. Hamas drove out loyalists of Abbas two years later but, to the dismay of Israel, reconciled with the Palestinian president after US-brokered Middle East peace talks collapsed earlier this year.
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