TEL AVIV: Israel would continue its military campaign in the Gaza Strip for as long as needed and with as much force as necessary, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday.

“From the beginning, we promised to return the quiet to Israel’s citizens and we will continue to act until that aim is achieved. We will take as much time as necessary, and will exert as much force as needed,” he said in a public address.

Earlier in the day, the Israeli army gave a first indication that it was ending operations in parts of Gaza, while continuing to bombard other areas.

As a Palestinian delegation flew to Egypt in search of a ceasefire, the Israeli army told residents of a part of northern Gaza that it was “safe” to return home.

“They have been infor­med it is safe for civilians to return to Beit Lahiya and Al-Atatra,” a spokeswoman said, in what was understood to be a confirmation that troops had stopped operating there.

Witnesses in the north confirmed seeing troops leaving the area as others were seen leaving another flashpoint area in southern Gaza.

Israel’s devastating 26-day operation has so far claimed more than 1,660 Palestinian lives and displaced up to a quarter of the territory’s population.

Of those killed, at least 296 are children and adolescents, according to the UN.

“Children make up for 30 per cent of the civilian casualties,” said the UN children’s agency Unicef, adding that the toll was based on deaths which it was able to verify.

“The number of child casualties during the last 48 hours may rise as a number of incidents are pending verification,” it said in a statement. Unicef said the toll among children broke down to 187 boys and 109 girls, with at least 203 of them under the age of 12. Most of those killed have been civilians, and more than 8,900 have been wounded. Israel has itself lost 63 soldiers, while two civilians and a Thai worker have been killed inside the Jewish state. A spokesman for Israeli army said the partial pullout came because Israel was “quite close to completing” the destruction of tunnels used for infiltrating southern Israel — the main objective of its ground operation.

Despite the partial withdrawal, Israel’s security cabinet decided against sending a delegation to ceasefire talks with the Palestinians in Cairo, media reports said.

Chances of achieving a more permanent ceasefire nosedived on Friday after Israel said it believed Hamas militants had captured a 23-year-old soldier in a Friday morning ambush near the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Immediately afterwards, Israel bombarded the Rafah area in shelling that is still ongoing, with medics saying it killed 114 people in 24 hours.

Since midnight, more than 86 people have been killed, the vast majority in Rafah, raising the overall toll to 1,676, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said, putting the number of wounded at more than 9,000.

The alleged capture of Second Lieutenant Hadar Goldin drew sharp condemnation from the United Nations and the White House, which jointly brokered the abortive 72-hour truce and demanded his immediate release.

Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, acknowledged its militants had staged an ambush early on Friday in which soldiers were killed, but denied holding the soldier, saying the attackers were missing and presumed dead.

“We have lost contact with the mujahedeen unit that was in that ambush, and we think that all the fighters in this unit were killed by Zionist shelling along with the soldier, who the enemy says is missing, assuming our combatants captured this soldier during the fighting,” it said.

“Until now, we in Qassam have no knowledge of the missing soldier, or his whereabouts or the circumstances of his disappearance.”

Meanwhile, air strikes and tank fire continued pounding huge areas of southern Gaza into rubble, killing scores more people on Saturday, as militants kept up their cross-border fire, with 56 rockets hitting Israel and another six downed, including two over greater Tel Aviv.

Published in Dawn, August 3rd, 2014