Israel faces criticism as Gaza toll hits 765

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Recovery teams ventured into battlegrounds of the Gaza Strip on Thursday to gather bodies from the rubble, and Hamas officials said the Palestinian toll in Israel's 13 day-old offensive rose to 765 dead.

Local ambulance crews and the Red Crescent, using a time slot coordinated with Israeli forces, said they collected rotting corpses in places that had been too risky to reach since Israeli forces began a ground attack six days ago.

They found four children starving beside the bodies of their mothers, dead many days, and evacuated scores of trapped and injured, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

Israel lost 3 soldiers in fighting with Islamist militants who hold the Gaza Strip. Apart from a "friendly fire" incident which killed four, this was its heaviest one-day combat toll.

Ten soldiers have so far died in the campaign launched by Israel to crush Hamas forces and halt the firing of missiles from Gaza into Israel. Israel says it is doing what it can to avoid civilian casualties but accuses Hamas of deliberately placing its forces close to homes and Mosques.

At the United Nations, Western powers and Arab states reached an agreement in principle on a draft Security Council resolution that would call for an immediate ceasefire.

"In principle there is an agreement," Arab League envoy ambassador Yahya Mahmassani told reporters.

It was not clear if they would vote on the resolution later in the day or on Friday.

Rescue work in Gaza was becoming increasingly dangerous.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which feeds half of Gaza's 1.5 million people, stopped work after a driver was killed by an Israeli tank. It had earlier said two drivers died.

Operations would be suspended until the Israeli army could guarantee security.

The Hamas ministry of health said 34 percent of the dead and 35 percent of over 3,000 injured were children. There was no independent confirmation of the figure.

"The danger to medical staff and the difficulty of extracting the injured from collapsed buildings makes proper evacuation and estimation of casualties difficult," the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator's daily field report said.

"Civilians, notably children who form 56 percent of Gaza's population, are bearing the brunt of the violence. As one of the most densely populated places in the world, it is clear that many more civilians will be killed if the conflict continues."

BROTHERS IN DEATH