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A Palestinian shepherd holding a white cloth flees her house with her herd following an Israeli ground offensive in Rafah There is international concern about the impact of the violence on civilians

A Palestinian family and an Israeli Bedouin father were among those killed on Saturday as the casualty toll from Israel's ground campaign and rocket attacks from Gaza continued to rise.
The Bedouin man died and family members were injured when a rocket hit their campsite in south Israel, police said.

The Palestinian family of eight were among at least 30 people killed as the death toll in Gaza surged past 300.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon is heading to the region to help mediation efforts.
The visit is aimed at helping Israelis and Palestinians "end the violence and find a way forward", the UN said.
On Friday US President Barack Obama said he was "deeply concerned" about civilian losses in the conflict.
Israel launched ground operations in Gaza following 10 days of air strikes, which failed to stop Hamas firing rockets across the border.
Missile fire from Gaza into Israel has continued unabated
People in Gaza City look at a building destroyed by an Israeli air strike, 19 July 2014 People in Gaza City look at a building destroyed by an Israeli air strike
Further rocket attacks on southern Israel were reported on Saturday.
The Israeli military said it killed a Palestinian militant after he infiltrated Israel through a tunnel from central Gaza.

The army said he was among several militants armed with machine-guns aiming to carry out a lethal attack on a nearby Israeli community.

An Israeli patrol repulsed the attack, forcing the militants back into Gaza. Two Israeli soldiers died in the incident, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.
Reports said residents of the al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza received telephone warnings from the IDF telling them to evacuate on Saturday ahead of Israeli military operations.
Earlier, an air strike outside a mosque in the southern town of Khan Younis killed seven people

US President Barack Obama spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, underlining his support for Israel's right to defend itself against Palestinian militants but warning against escalation in Gaza.
President Obama said "no nation should accept rockets being fired into its borders" but called on Israel's military to conduct its operation "in a way that minimises civilian casualties."
Mr Netanyahu has warned of a "significant expansion" of the offensive but Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls Gaza, said Israel would "pay a high price" for the invasion.

Gaza-Israel views on invasion:
"The ground invasion is a bad move because it is going to kill more innocent civilians and would do no good for Israelis." - Abdelraziq, business and management graduate, Gaza
"The ground invasion is a necessary evil. The last thing that Israel would like to do is to risk the lives of its own soldiers and the lives of innocent people, but we have to stop the firing of the rockets and destroy the tunnels." - Doron Youngerwood, marketing manager, Modiin, Israel

At least 60 Palestinians are thought to have been killed since Israel launched the ground offensive in Gaza on Thursday.

More than 330 Palestinians - the vast majority of them civilians - have been killed since the start of the wider Israeli operation on 8 July, according to officials in Gaza.

Three Israeli soldiers and two Israeli civilians have been killed since 8 July and several Israelis have been seriously injured.

Israel says the ground operation is necessary to target a Hamas tunnel network, which the Israel military could not do only from the air.

UN officials say more than 50,000 Palestinians have sought shelter from the offensive.

Armed Taliban militant in Waziristan, Pakistan. Aug 2012 The Pakistani Taliban is said to be closely linked to the Haqqani network
The US is to designate the Pakistan-based militant Haqqani network as a terrorist organisation, subjecting it to sanctions.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she had sent a report to Congress saying the network met the criteria as a terror group.
She said the US would continue "diplomatic, military and intelligence pressure on the network".
The US has long described the Haqqani group as a major threat.
The network - which has links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban - has carried out a series of high-profile attacks against foreign troops in Afghanistan.
The designation will ban companies and individuals in the US from supporting the group and freeze any US assets it may have.
State department officials said the formal designation would be made in the coming days.
"Today, I have sent a report to Congress saying that the Haqqani network meets the statutory criteria of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) for designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO)," said Mrs Clinton, who is currently attending an Apec (Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation) summit in Vladivostok, Russia.
"We also continue our robust campaign of diplomatic, military and intelligence pressure on the network, demonstrating the United States's resolve to degrade the organisation's ability to execute violent attacks."
Mrs Clinton added that she was taking the action "in the context of our overall strategy in Afghanistan" following policy laid out by US President Barack Obama when he visited Afghanistan in May.
The Pentagon said the Haqqani network "represents a significant threat to US national security and we will continue our aggressive military action against this threat".
"These new group designations will build on our efforts to degrade the network's capacity to carry out attacks, including affecting fundraising abilities, targeting them with our military and intelligence resources, and pressing Pakistan to take action," said George Little, the acting Assistant Secretary of Defence for Public Affairs.
Hostage fears In response to the US move, senior commanders of the Haqqani network told Reuters news agency that the decision showed the US was not sincere about peace efforts in Afghanistan.
They also said the move would "bring hardship" for US army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, 25, who has been held prisoner for more than three years.
The Haqqanis also hold numerous Western, Pakistani and Afghan hostages as well as kidnap-for-ransom victims.
The US has been putting pressure on Pakistan to launch a ground offensive in North Waziristan, where the Haqqanis are based, but Pakistan is reluctant.
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The BBC's Jill McGivering says that any such offensive would probably be focused on disrupting the Pakistani Taliban - an internal threat - and not on attacking the Haqqanis, whose battleground is Afghanistan.
The US fears that Islamabad sees the Haqqanis as potential allies after Nato's withdrawal from Afghanistan, she says.
Last year, US Admiral Mike Mullen, former head of the US military, said the Haqqani network had become a "veritable arm" of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.
Analysts say this prompted suggestions that a designation against the Haqqanis would indirectly be branding Pakistan a terrorist state.
In Washington, the White House has also been under political pressure from Congress to add the Haqqanis to the country's terrorist blacklist.
Congress had set Mrs Clinton a deadline of this weekend to deliver her report.
Meanwhile, the US has been disrupting the group, targeting leaders in drone attacks.
Last month, an air strike in North Waziristan was reported to have killed a key Haqqani commander, Badruddin Haqqani.
He had been described as a senior operational commander, masterminding and directing attacks on high-profile targets.
Correspondents say he was also responsible for training camps and for extorting funds from contractors.

Chinese soldiers rescue children in Zhaotong, Yunnan province The army is assisting in the rescue operation in the quake-hit areas
At least 80 people are now known to have died in a series of earthquakes in south-western China, as rescuers struggle to reach remote areas.
More than 730 people were injured after the quakes hit Yunnan and Guizhou provinces on Friday, state media say.
The tremors struck mostly mountainous areas, causing landslides that blocked some roads.
The US Geological Survey registered the two strongest of the quakes at 5.6 magnitude.
Premier Wen Jiabao is expected to arrive in the area shortly.
Tents dispatched China's Xinhua news agency quoted officials in Yunnan as saying 6,650 houses had been destroyed in the province and 430,000 others damaged.
More than 100,000 people have already been evacuated, said Xinhua, and the Red Cross has sent 650 tents and 3,000 quilts to the region.
The authorities have deployed the army to assist rescue teams in the rough terrain.
"Roads are blocked and rescuers have to climb the mountains to reach hard-hit villages," Li Fuchun, head of Yunnan's Luozehe town, was quoted as saying.
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Mobile and regular phone service in the area was experiencing disruption, according to reports.
Most of the deaths were in Yunnan's Yiliang county, said officials.
Television footage from state-run broadcaster CCTV showed hundreds of local residents gathering on streets littered with bricks and rocks.
Users of the Twitter-like wesbite Weibo reported people rushing out of shaking office buildings, and photos posted online also showed streets strewn with rubble.
Aid agencies said they were concerned about the plight of children in the two provinces following the quakes.
"We are especially worried about those who may have been separated from their parents, as more aftershocks are expected to hit the area," Save the Children in China Country Director Pia MacRae said.
The largest of the quakes was also felt in the neighbouring province of Sichuan, where a 7.8 magnitude quake in 2008 left tens of thousands dead.

Obama: "We need to create more jobs, faster"
US President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney have hit the campaign trial in swing states in the wake of a disappointing jobs report.
Both men appeared in Iowa and New Hampshire on the first full day after the end of the party conventions.
Mr Obama conceded that the unemployment figures were "not good enough", while Mr Romney said the president's policies had failed.
The two men are neck-and-neck in the polls two months from election day.
Mr Obama's hope for a poll boost after the three-day Democratic convention, which finishing in North Carolina on Thursday night, faced a challenge from the latest set of weak economic data.
Romney: "Americans don't want four more years of the last four years"
Friday's report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed 96,000 jobs were added in August, fewer than expected. The unemployment rate fell from 8.3% to 8.1%, but only because more people gave up looking for work.
'He tried'
The two men spent Friday campaigning in the swing states of Iowa and New Hampshire, with the president in New Hampshire in the morning before holding an evening rally in Iowa.
Mr Romney did the reverse, making his first appearance of the day in Sioux City, Iowa, before ending his Friday in Nashua, New Hampshire.
"That's not good enough," Mr Obama told a rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, talking about the jobs report. "We know it's not good enough.
"We need to create more jobs faster. We need to fill the hole left by this recession faster."
Mr Romney kept up his campaign's focus on lambasting the president's handling of the economy, pouncing on the jobs figures

Race to the White House

Obama47%
Romney47%
Poll of polls, 5 September 
"The president said that by this time we would be at 5.4% unemployment. Instead we're at about 8%. Had his policies worked as he thought they would there would be nine million more Americans working," Mr Romney said at a campaign rally in Iowa.
"This president tried but he didn't understand what it takes to make our economy work. I do."
On financial news broadcaster CNBC, Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan said: "This is not even close to what a recovery looks like."
Mr Obama is campaigning in the key swing states of New Hampshire and Iowa on Friday, joined by First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden and his wife.
The Romney campaign released a glut of 15 anti-Obama ads on Friday as part of a reported $4.5m (£3m) broadcast campaign in eight swing states.
The ads - subtly tailored for each broadcast market - are scheduled to run in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.
Correspondents say the selection of eight states gives a clear signal about where the Romney campaign will direct its energy during the two-month campaign.
Eastwood's chair explanation In Mr Obama's Thursday night convention speech he offered a string of critiques of Republican policies, while emphasising there was no quick fix for the nation's problems.
"When you pick up that ballot to vote - you will face the clearest choice of any time in a generation," he said.
"Over the next few years, big decisions will be made in Washington: on jobs and the economy; taxes and deficits; energy and education; war and peace - decisions that will have a huge impact on our lives and our children's lives for decades to come."
A North Carolina town struggles to feel passion for the president after devastating job losses
Also on Friday, Clint Eastwood broke his silence about what inspired his bizarre speech at the Republican convention last week, when he spoke to an empty chair that he said represented Mr Obama.
He told his California hometown newspaper the Carmel Pine Cone that he noticed the seat while waiting backstage to speak.
"When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea," he said. "I'll just put the stool out there and I'll talk to Mr Obama and ask him why he didn't keep all of the promises he made to everybody."
Eastwood said the Romney campaign had asked for details of what he was going to say, but he told them: "You can't do that with me, because I don't know what I'm going to say."

Confiscated weapons on display in Hermosillo, Mexico (7 Sept 2012) Police in Hermosillo displayed some of the weapons seized
Mexican police have found a large arsenal of weapons thought to belong to drug traffickers at a house in the northern city of Hermosillo, after a nine-year old boy took a gun to school.
The boy's classmates saw the gun in his bag and reported it to the school authorities, who alerted the police.
The weapon, which was reportedly loaded, was confiscated and police raided the boy's home.
There they found the weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
The local authorities said they had found a powerful rifle (AR15) at the dining table and in one of the bedrooms, 13,000 rounds of ammunition, pistols and assault rifles, bulletproof vests and two money-counting machines.
Several high-calibre cartridges capable of penetrating body armour - so-called "cop-killers" - were also discovered.
In addition, the police confiscated military uniforms, portable radios and three vehicles, two of them armoured.
A police spokesman said a woman, thought to be the boy's mother, had been arrested at the house but that a man had managed to escape.
The boy was taken into the care of social workers.
This episode is further evidence of the damaging effects the country's violent drug war is having on young people, the BBC's Will Grant in Mexico reports.
Lobby groups have called on the authorities to do more to protect children from falling under the control of the powerful drug gangs, our correspondent says.
One local non-governmental organisation, he adds, has urged parents to routinely check their children's rucksacks for weapons, to help improve security in schools.

Members of the Afghan security forces secure the blast area in Kabul, 8 September Afghan security forces guarded the site of the attack
A suicide bomber has killed at least six people near the headquarters of the Nato-led international coalition (Isaf) in Kabul.
A number of children are among the dead. There were no reports of casualties among Isaf troops.
An attacker on a motorbike blew himself up near the entrance, an Isaf spokeswoman told Reuters news agency.
Kabul security has been tightened as supporters of an anti-Taliban warlord mark 11 years since his assassination.
Ahmad Shah Massoud - a hero of the 1980s war against Soviet occupiers, and later of opposition to the Taliban - was killed by al-Qaeda suicide bombers on 9 September 2001.
Following Saturday's explosion, the Isaf HQ at Camp Eggers, which is home to some 2,500 personnel, was placed "on lockdown", the Isaf spokeswoman said.
'Child hawkers' Afghan police confirmed a suicide bomber had struck.
Child street hawkers are believed to have been caught in the blast and witnesses quoted by Reuters said small bodies could be seen being carried to ambulances.
A police official speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP news agency: "Most of the victims are young children who gather around Isaf to sell small items to soldiers leaving or getting into the base."
The US embassy, the Italian embassy and the presidential palace are also located near the site of the attack.
A Taliban spokesman named Zabihullah Mujahid said the militant group had carried out the attack, targeting US intelligence.
Scores of dignitaries are due to attend commemorations of Massoud's death in Kabul on Saturday, which is a national public holiday in his honour.

A police officer outside Surrey home of al-Hilli family Police plan to search the al-Hilli family home as part of their investigation
The home of a British man shot dead in the French Alps along with his wife and two others is to be searched by police.
French prosecutor Eric Maillaud said British and French officers would enter the home of Iraq-born Saad al-Hilli, 50, in Claygate, Surrey.
Brother Zaid al-Hilli has denied a family dispute over money, which is one line of inquiry in the investigation.
Relatives of Mr al-Hilli's two young daughters, who survived Wednesday's attack, have arrived in France.
The girls, aged seven and four, are believed to be the only witnesses to the killings, carried out near the popular tourist destination of Lake Annecy, and are under police protection.
Three police officers from France are thought to have arrived in the UK already to investigate the shootings, and a fourth officer is due to arrive later.
The most senior of the four, Colonel Marc de Tarle, who heads the National Gendarmerie Criminal Affairs Bureau, was the first to arrive.
Mr Maillaud said French officers would interview Mr al-Hilli's brother in the UK as a "witness".
Franco-British inquiry Surrey Police said they were helping French authorities to carry out a "complex" investigation.
Saad al-Hilli and his family arrive at the Solitaire du Lac camp site on Monday. Close to the shores of Lac Annecy, in the Haute Savoie region of France the area is popular with British tourists. They pitch their tents next to their caravan, shown above. Saad al-Hilli and his family arrive at the Solitaire du Lac camp site on Monday. Close to the shores of Lac Annecy, in the Haute Savoie region of France, the area is popular with British tourists. They pitch their tents next to their caravan, shown above.
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"As part of this, the force is facilitating a visit by French investigators to conduct inquiries in the UK," a spokesman said.
The BBC understands the family home was originally owned by Saad al-Hilli's parents and later left to him by his mother in her will.
Police plan to search the house as part of efforts to gather background information about Mr al-Hilli.
Mr Maillaud said: "Up until now the police in Britain were guaranteeing the safety of the house but now it's a Franco-British inquiry that is starting and we can now enter the house of Mr al-Hilli."
Saad al-Hilli Mr al-Hilli's daughters are believed to be the only witnesses to Wednesday's killings
Mr al-Hilli's wife, Iqbal, and a woman thought to be his 74-year-old mother-in-law, were killed during the attack.
The fourth victim, a cyclist whose body was found near the car after apparently stumbling across the attack, has been named as 45-year-old Sylvain Mollier.
Mr Maillaud said four-year-old daughter Zeena al-Hilli - who spent eight hours hiding in the car with the bodies before being found by officers - had identified her family and described the "fury" and "terror" of the attack to French police.
The child said she was between her mother and the older woman - who have not yet been officially named - and hid under her mother's skirt when the shooting started.
The older sister, Zainab, is in a medically-induced coma in Grenoble University Hospital after being shot once and suffering head injuries.
She was found by a British cyclist who discovered the murder scene and alerted the authorities.
Vehicle sightings The BBC's Mark Lowen, in Annecy, said: "Prosecutors hope that if she recovers, she may provide the key to what happened here in this tranquil corner of France, and who is to blame."
Relatives of the girls arrived in France on Friday night, accompanied by a British social worker, and were due to meet Zeena later, Mr Maillaud said.
Prosecutor Eric Maillaud: "The brother went to see police to find out how his brother was and said 'no, I don't have a conflict with him'"
"I don't know when they will be able to see the little girl. We have to be sure it can be done without problems," he told AFP news agency.
During a press conference on Friday, the prosecutor confirmed that each of the victims had at least one bullet in the head, and about 25 shots were fired in total - more than originally thought.
This has led investigators to believe that more than one gun was used in the killings.
They are looking into reports of a green or dark-coloured four-wheel drive vehicle and a motorcycle, apparently seen by the cyclist who discovered the murder scene. But Mr Maillaud pointed out that such vehicles were common during the tourist season in a mountainous region.

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