REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, GAZA/JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing international alarm over a rising civilian death toll in Gaza, said on Thursday he would not accept any ceasefire that stopped Israel completing the destruction of militants' infiltration tunnels.
Gaza officials say at least 1,372 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in the battered territory and nearly 7,000 wounded. Fifty-six Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza clashes and more than 400 wounded. Three civilians have been killed by Palestinian shelling in Israel.
The Israeli military estimated on Wednesday that accomplishing that task, already into its fourth week, would take several more days.
"We are determined to complete this mission, with or without a ceasefire," Netanyahu said in public remarks at the start of a meeting of his full cabinet in Tel Aviv.
"I wont agree to any proposal that will not enable the Israeli military to finish this important task, for the sake of Israel's security."
Leaving open the option of widening a ground campaign in the Hamas Islamist-dominated Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said it had called up an additional 16,000 reservists. A military source said they would relieve a similar number of reserve soldiers being stood down.
Using US arms stockpile
Netanyahu's security cabinet on Wednesday approved continuing operations launched on July 8 in response to a surge of cross-border rocket attacks. Israel also sent a delegation to Egypt, which has been trying, with US blessing, to broker a ceasefire.
Washington has also, however, allowed Israel to tap a local US arms stockpile in the past few weeks to replenish its grenades and mortar rounds, a US defence official said on Thursday.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned on Wednesday the deaths of at least 15 Palestinians among thousands sheltering at a UN-run school. The United Nations said its initial assessment was that Israeli artillery shells hit the facility.
"It is outrageous. It is unjustifiable. And it demands accountability and justice," Ban said.
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