World Press on the crisis in Gaza (July 23, 2014)

The New York Times published an article by Jodi Rudoren headlined "In a Grim Game of Numbers, Israel and Palestinians Vie for Advantage."

"The grim tallies from Gaza and Israel pour in each morning, dockets of death, destruction and damage that, with the war entering its 16th day, begin to seem almost routine," the article starts. It continues with the numbers: "The Gaza-based Health Ministry put the Palestinian death toll at 632 from the beginning of the escalation through 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, including 132 children, 66 women, and 36 elderly men. The toll would soon climb. Witnesses reported heavy clashes and intense artillery fire in Khuza’a, a town of about 10,000 people in the southeast of the strip."

"The competing efforts by Israel and Palestinian officials to direct the narrative of this conflict are made that much more complicated by the hundreds of reporters on the ground providing almost instantaneous reports of the fighting and the resulting casualties and by the thousands of "and opinions on social media," the artile reads.

"On the diplomatic front, Secretary of State John Kerry landed in Israel and was scheduled to meet with the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, at a hotel in Jerusalem; then with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank city of Ramallah; and, later, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his military headquarters in Tel Aviv," the author writes.

"Colonel Lerner, the Israeli military spokesman, confirmed that most of the fighting remained in areas on the periphery of the Gaza Strip and in the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya, where 13 soldiers and at least 60 Palestinians were killed Sunday and fierce combat has continued since. He said 30 militants had been killed in the last 24 hours, for a total of 210 — Palestinians put the number of fighters much lower — and that 28 underground tunnels with 68 entry points had been “exposed,” and six of the tunnels “demolished”," the author writes. He continues by quoting Colonel Lerner: “We are meeting resistance around the tunnels, they are clearly trying to protect these assets, as far as they’re concerned. Shejaiya has turned out to be a more substantial, fortified position, which explains, perhaps, why they are putting so much effort into defending it.”

"A senior military intelligence official, in a separate morning conference call, told reporters that Israeli forces were encountering “quite advanced” weapons systems, including Russian-made Kornet and RPG-29 antitank weapons, which he said were probably smuggled through Iran and Syria. Hamas was also using snipers and improvised explosive devices, he said: booby traps in tunnels, suicide bombers in the streets, and explosives strapped to animals," the article reads.