REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, GAZA/JERUSALEM - At least 50 Palestinians were killed on Sunday by Israeli shelling in a Gaza neighborhood, where bodies were strewn in the street and thousands fled for shelter to a hospital packed with wounded, witnesses and health officials said.
As the number of dead mounted, Israel and Gaza's dominant Hamas movement agreed to a two-hour "humanitarian truce" in that area, from 1.30 pm to 3.30 pm at the request of the Red Cross. Fighting continued elsewhere in Gaza.
The mass casualties in Shejaia, in northeast Gaza, were the heaviest since Israel launched its offensive on the Palestinian territory on July 8 after cross-border rocket strikes by militants intensified. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, based in the occupied West Bank, accused Israel of carrying out a massacre and declared three days of mourning.
The Israeli military said on Sunday Hamas had deployed rockets and built tunnels and command centers in Shejaia.
"Two days ago, residents of Shejaia received recorded messages to evacuate the area in order to protect their lives," an Israeli military spokeswoman said.
Anguished cries of "Did you see Ahmed?" "Did you see my wife?" echoed through the courtyard of Gaza's Shifa hospital, a where panicked residents of Shejaia gathered in family groups, seeking a safe haven. Inside, bodies and wounded lay on blood-stained floors.
Elderly men there said the Israeli attack was the fiercest they had seen since the 1967 Middle East war, when Israel captured Gaza. Shifa hospital's director, Naser Tattar, said 17 children, 14 women and four elderly were among the 50 dead, and about 400 people were wounded in the Israeli assault.
Gaza's Health Ministry officials said at least 385 Palestinians, many of them civilians, have been killed in the 13-day conflict and about 2,600 have been wounded. On Israel's side, two civilians have been killed by cross-border fire and five soldiers have died in fighting. More than 50 Israeli troops have been wounded, hospital officials said.
Thousands fled Shejaia, some by foot and others piling into the backs of trucks and sitting on the hoods of cars filled with families trying to get away. Several people rode out of the neighborhood of 100,000 in the shovel of a bulldozer.
Video given to Reuters by a local showed at least a dozen corpses, including three children, lying in rubble-filled streets, though the footage could not be verified independently.
There were no signs of a breakthrough on diplomatic efforts to get a permanent ceasefire, and militants kept up their rocket fire on Israel. Sirens sounded in southern Israeli towns and in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. There were no reports of casualties on the Israeli side.
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