Israel's military offensive against Gaza
Israel bombed five mosques, a sports stadium and the home of the late Hamas military chief across the Gaza Strip early on Tuesday, a Gaza police official said, as the U.N. chief and the U.S. secretary of state launched a high-level effort to end two weeks of deadly fighting. Air strikes set off huge explosions that turned the night sky over Gaza City orange. The sound of the blasts mixed with the thud of shelling, often just seconds apart, and the pre-dawn call to prayer from mosque loudspeakers. The intense Israeli strikes came as U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met in Cairo to launch the highest-level push yet to end two weeks of Israel-Hamas fighting that has claimed at least 570 Palestinian and 29 Israeli lives.
