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Fearful times: A timeline of the current Israel-Gaza conflict

A young relative of Gaza police chief Tayseer Al-Batsh mourns during the funeral of his family members, who hospital officials said were killed in an Israeli air strike.
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July 16, 2014

A young relative of Gaza police chief Tayseer Al-Batsh mourns during the funeral of his family members, who hospital officials said were killed in an Israeli air strike.

Images of destruction have been flowing in since the on-going Palestinian-Israeli conflict flared up again in recent days, with Palestinian rockets being fired at Israel and Israeli air strikes hitting the Gaza Strip.

The current hostilities were triggered by the kidnap and killing of three Jewish seminary students (pictured above) and the subsequent revenge murder of a Palestinian youth.

Rising tension swiftly turned to all-out conflict.

June 30. Tel Aviv, Israel. Photo by Nir Elias/Reuters

In the image above, an Iron Dome launcher fires an interceptor rocket in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod on July 8, when cross-border fighting with Hamas-led militants surged.

After a week of fighting, Egypt proposed a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza that would start on July 15.

Israel unilaterally accepted but the dominant Palestinian Islamist group Hamas said it had not been consulted by Cairo and kept up rocket attacks while Israel held back for six hours.

With tension escalating, on July 16 Israel urged the evacuation of several Gaza Strip areas where more than 100,000 people live, threatening ground operations.

July 8. Ashdod, Israel. Photo by Baz Ratner/Reuters

Palestinians gather around the remains of a house which police said was destroyed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza City.

Gaza health officials said the death toll in the coastal enclave had risen to 202 and that most of the dead were civilians.

World powers urged calm, worried about spiralling casualties should Israel send tens of thousands of troops it has mobilised into Gaza.

It is one of the world's mostly densely populated areas, its poverty exacerbated by the collapse of public works and displacement of at least 18,000 Palestinians who the UN said have taken shelter at its Gaza City schools.

July 14. Gaza City, Palestinian Territories. Photo by Mohammed Salem/Reuters

With Palestinian fire having inflicted the first Israeli fatality of the conflict – a civilian bringing food to soldiers near Gaza – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “expand and intensify” to stop persistent rocket strikes that have made a race for shelters a daily routine for hundreds of thousands in the Jewish state.

In the image above, Israelis take cover on the side of a road as a siren warns of incoming rockets outside the northern Gaza Strip.

July 15. Gaza Border, Israel. Photo by Amir Cohen/Reuters

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