CRI听力:Israel Vows to Expand Air Strikes as Truce Fails

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Israeli military is going to intensify its air strikes in Gaza.

The pronouncement comes on the heels of Hamas rejecting an Egyptian-proposed ceasefire.

CRI's Su Yi has more.

Israel has recorded its first fatality amid the barrage of over a thousand rockets fired from the Gaza Strip since the start of the Israeli military's Operation Protective Edge last week.

Paramedic Uri Shacham:

"Unfortunately 30 minutes ago an Israeli citizen working near Erez crossing border was hit by shrapnel due to a mortar attack on the crossing, he was severely injured, treated at the scene by paramedics of Magen David Adom and evacuated to Barzilay hospital in Ashkelon where they unfortunately had to pronounce his death."

Israeli forces have resumed air strikes in the Gaza Strip just hours after initially agreeing to an Egyptian-proposed ceasefire deal, which Hamas has rejected.
As a result, Netanyahu says there is no choice but to step up air strikes.

"It would have been preferable to have solved this diplomatically, and this is what we tried to do when we accepted the Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire, but Hamas leaves us no choice but to expand and intensify the campaign against it."

The UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza says the eight-day conflict has killed close to 200 Palestinians and left over a thousand others injured.

The UN body in charge of refugee issues in the Palestinian territory also says the assaults have toppled close to 600 homes.

Life in Gaza has come to a standstill as the civilian casualties continue to mount.

Yasser el Haj lost eight family members in an air strike on his home.

"After losing both my parents and my brothers and sisters, I am now all by myself. I have no one except a sister who is married and lives in Rafah, and that's far away. Life is going to be difficult from now on."

On the diplomatic front, the Chinese government is once again calling for an immediate ceasefire.

Chinese vice Foreign Minister Zhang Ming has made the call during his meetings with Israeli, Palestinian and Arab diplomats in Beijing.

China's Special Envoy for Middle East Affairs, Wu Sike, is set to embark on a mediation trip to the region later on this Wednesday.

Meantime, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is calling on Arab countries to pressure Hamas to accept a ceasefire, saying there is the potential of a "greater escalation of violence".

For CRI, I'm Su Yi.