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2 March 2008 GAZA CITY -- Amidst a mounting death toll in Gaza from
Israeli air and ground attacks, the Palestinian leadership
called off peace talks with Israel while the United Nations
Security Council met late Saturday in emergency session.
Israeli forces continued attacks on Sunday after killing 61
Palestinians in a land and air blitz in the Hamas-held Gaza
Strip on Saturday, amid warnings that the violence had
"buried" the peace process.
In New York, the United Nations condemned both Israel and
the Palestinians for the heavy fighting and in particular
the high death toll inflicted by the Israeli Defence Forces
on the Palestinian civilians in Gaza Strip.
The UN Security Council was convened for an urgent meeting
at the request of Libya on behalf of the Palestinian
Authority to discuss the situation, which UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-Moon said had caused a terrible civilian
death toll.
"The scenes today from Gaza have been particularly
disturbing," Banā said in an address to the open council
meeting.
The bloodshed on Saturday alone claimed 60 lives - one of
the highest daily totals in years - as the Israeli army
retaliated with ground and air attacks against continuing
rocket fire from Gaza militants.
I was unable to find any precise information on the timing
of raids, so decided to set the full 24 hour day (UTC) as
representative of this tragic increase in violence. The
result is a striking trend for most of the day, and a huge
drop in the late afternoon, then again a rise in the network
variance. The final results is Chisquare 86941.944 on 86400
df, for p=0.096 and Z=1.303.
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