The Bottom Line:

  • The Israeli army is shelling the Gaza Strip on Sunday despite international calls for restraint to protect civilians and amid a "stalemate" to renew the truce with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

  • Overnight, the Israeli military said it had struck "more than 400 targets" in the Gaza Strip since fighting resumed on Friday, killing at least 240 people, according to the Hamas administration's health minister.

  • Hamas' military wing and the affiliated Islamic Jihad also announced that they had fired "barrages of rockets" on Saturday at several cities in Israel, including Tel Aviv.

  • The Israeli military reported "more than 250 rockets" fired and two soldiers killed on Saturday, the first since fighting resumed.

  • A dawn strike on Sunday killed at least seven people in the Rafah area at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, near the border with Egypt, the Hamas government said.

    With AFP

December 2 Essentials:

  • The Israeli army continued its massive bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Saturday for a second consecutive day since the expiration of a truce with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas that allowed the release of hostages and the delivery of emergency aid.

  • Israel's war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip will continue until "all its objectives are achieved," including the destruction of the Palestinian Islamist movement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday night.

  • Israeli negotiators, who were continuing talks in Qatar on a new truce with Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip, returned to Israel because dialogue was "at an impasse," the Israeli prime minister's office said.

  • Israel confirmed the death of five hostages held captive in the Gaza Strip, giving their names, adding that it had "informed the families of their deaths."

  • Hamas' health ministry in power in the besieged Palestinian territory has reported 240 deaths in Gaza since the bombing resumed on Friday.

Namely: The number of casualties is provided by Gaza's Hamas-run Ministry of Health

The ministry collects information from hospitals in the enclave and the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Gaza's health ministry does not say how Palestinians were killed, either by Israeli airstrikes and/or barrages or failed Palestinian rocket fire. It describes all victims as victims of "Israeli aggression" and also makes no distinction between civilians and combatants.

During the four wars and the numerous clashes between Israel and Hamas, UN agencies have regularly cited Health Ministry figures in their reports. The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Palestine Red Crescent Society also use these figures.

In the aftermath of previous episodes of war, the United Nations Humanitarian Office published casualty figures based on its own research into medical records. The UN figures are largely in agreement with those of Gaza's Ministry of Health, with a few differences.

To read more about Gaza's Ministry of Health's assessments, click here or here.

(France 24 with AP)

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