ISRAEL ATTACKS KILL 217 PALESTINIANS IN GAZA

Israel bombarded Gaza with airstrikes and Palestinian militants kept up cross-border rocket fire, with no firm sign on Wednesday of any imminent ceasefire despite international calls to end more than a week of fighting, NIdal Al-mughrabi and Jeffrey Heller reported for Reuters.

Israeli leaders said they were pressing on with an offensive against Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but an Israeli military spokesman acknowledged that with an estimated 12,000 missiles and mortars in the groups' Gaza arsenal, "they still have enough rockets to fire." Israel has been roundly condemned for using the myth of self-defense in blasting Palestinians in occupied territories.

Two Thai workers were killed and seven people were wounded in a rocket strike on Tuesday on an Israeli farm just over the Gaza border, police said. Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Rockets were also launched at the cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beersheba, farther north, sending residents scrambling for shelter, in attacks that stretched late into Tuesday.

Nearly 450 buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or badly damaged, including six hospitals and nine primary-care health centers, since the current conflict began, the United Nations humanitarian agency said. Some 48,000 of the 52,000 displaced had gone to 58 U.N.-run schools.

Gaza medical officials say 217 Palestinians have been killed, including 63 children, and more than 1,400 wounded since the fighting began on May 10, which data bely Israeli claims that it had killed 160 Palestinian fighters.

Israeli authorities say 12 people have been killed in Israel, including two children.

Israel said its aircraft attacked homes belonging to several Hamas militants that were used as command centers or for weapons storage.

Early on Wednesday, Israeli artillery shelled targets in the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses said. A total of 3,450 rockets had been lobbed by Palestinian fighters into Israel, hitting homes, airports, military targets, and illegal Israeli settlements.

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