Gaza rescuers pull out scores of corpses from rubble

GAZA (Xinhua) - Around 85 bodies of Palestinians were found under the rubble in eastern Gaza city and the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis during the humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, medics said on Saturday.

Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman of the health ministry in Gaza, told reporters that rescue teams, medical crews and paramedics have already pulled out the corpses from rubble.  

So far, the death toll over the past 19 days of the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip climbed to 985 and more than 6,000 were wounded, the health ministry said.

On Friday night, both Islamic Hamas movement and Israel accepted a United Nations proposal to go for a 12-hour humanitarian ceasefire starting from 8:00 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) on Saturday to enable rescue teams and paramedics to evacuate bodies and wounded.

The Interior Ministry in Gaza called on people to be away from suspected bodies and not to reach areas close to the Israeli army ground forces in a bid to avoid confrontations.

Before the 12-hour ceasefire came into effect, 27 Palestinians were killed all over the Gaza Strip after midnight and at predawn, said al-Qedra, adding that the worst was when 20 family members, most of them women and children, were killed all together in one strike on their house at predawn in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis.

Since the ceasefire started, rescue teams with ambulances and paramedics began their hard work to look for survivals, pick up corpses and see if there were still wounded people under the rubble in both Sheja'eya in eastern Gaza city and in Khan Younis.