Gaza kids at risk in crowded urban battle zone

A medic carries the body of a Palestinian boy, who they claim was killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza City, to an event in which media were invited to cover the visit of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Friday, Nov. 16, 2012. Neighbors said the boy was killed in a blast around 8:30 a.m. Friday, around the time Kandil was entering the territory. Israel, which ordinarily confirms strikes, vociferously denied carrying out any form of attack in the area since the previous night. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hams, Pool)

The mother of 10-month-old Palestinian infant Haneen Tafesh holds the dead body of her daughter prior to a funeral in Jabaliya, north Gaza, Friday, Nov. 16, 2012. According to hospital reports Tafesh died from wounds of an earlier Israeli strike. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — The image of a dead preschooler cradled by the prime ministers of Egypt and Gaza in a hospital hallway has drawn attention to the dangers Gaza's children face in this crowded urban battle zone.

Children make up half of Gaza's population of 1.6 million and seem to be everywhere in the current round of cross-border fighting between Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers.

Children loitered Friday outside a Gaza City morgue for a glance at the latest "martyrs." Others followed adults to funerals or even rushed to the site where Israeli missiles had just struck a government building and fire was still smoldering. Despite outward bravado, young boys of elementary school age said quietly that fear of airstrikes kept them awake at night.

So far, six of 28 Palestinians killed in Israel's offensive this week have been children, ranging in age from just under 1 to 14 years, according to Gaza health officials. Most were killed by shrapnel while in or near their homes. In Israel, 12 children were hurt in rocket attacks this week.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Hamas of using Gaza's civilians, particularly children, as human shields by launching rockets from crowded residential areas.

Gazans argue that Israel is unleashing massive airstrikes on their territory without regard for civilians. They say that even Israel's self-described surgical strikes on militant targets put civilians at grave risk in Gaza, one of the world's most densely populated places.

Mahmoud Sadallah, the 4-year-old Gaza boy whose death moved Egypt's prime minister to tears, was from the town of Jebaliya, close to Gaza City. The boy died Friday in hotly disputed circumstances.

The boy's aunt, Hanan Sadallah, and his grief-stricken father Iyad — weak from crying and leaning on others to walk — said Mahmoud was killed in an Israeli airstrike. Hamas security officials also made that claim.

Israel vehemently denied involvement, saying it had not carried out any attacks in the area at the time. Gaza's two leading human rights groups, which routinely investigate civilian deaths, withheld judgment, saying they were unable to reach the area because of continued danger.

Mahmoud's family said the boy was in an alley close to his home when he was killed, along with a man of about 20, but no one appeared to have witnessed the strike. The area showed signs that a projectile might have exploded there, with shrapnel marks in the walls of surrounding homes and a shattered kitchen window. But neighbors said local security officials quickly took what remained of the projectile, making it impossible to verify who fired it.

Mahmoud's 12-year-old cousin Fares was injured in the right leg by shrapnel and was still visibly shaken several hours after the incident. "It's terrifying. I don't sleep at night," the boy said of the massive Israeli air attacks of the past three days. "I'm staying up all night."

Mahmoud's body was taken to Gaza City's main Shifa hospital around midmorning, just as Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas was showing Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil around the wards of patients.

One of the Sadallah's neighbors, carrying the lifeless boy, pushed through a throng of Hamas security men to reach the politicians. Eventually, the two prime ministers were photographed cradling the child.

Fighting back tears, Kandil called on Israel to halt its offensive.

"What I saw today in the hospital, the wounded and the martyrs, the boy ... whose blood is still on my hands and clothes, is something that we cannot keep silent about," he said.

In the propaganda war between Israel and Hamas, the suffering of children has served as a powerful tool.

Israel has repeatedly accused Gaza militants of cynically exploiting children. Netanyahu alleged Thursday that "Hamas deliberately targets our children, and they deliberately place their rockets next to their children."

On Thursday, a rocket attack on an apartment building in the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Malachi wounded a baby and a 4-year-old child, along with killing three adults. Photos showed rescuers evacuating the baby, who was covered in blood. In addition, 10 children have been hurt by shrapnel, Israeli paramedics said.

The rockets fired from Gaza are relatively crude and Israel says their main purpose is to instill fear and harm Israeli civilians. Gaza militants have fired hundreds of rockets since Wednesday, paralyzing large areas of the country where civilians were ordered to stay close to home or bomb shelters. The fighting has forced tens of thousands of Israeli children to stay indoors, and schools in southern Israel have been closed for the past two days.

Israel, meanwhile, has pounded Gaza with dozens of rapid-fire airstrikes, with loud booms ringing out, sometimes just minutes apart. Few civilians ventured into the streets Friday, particularly after dark. In Gaza City, a tractor-pulled cart loaded with women and children had a white flag dragging on the ground behind it, presumably as an extra precaution.

Some of the Gaza boys trying to get close to the "action" put on a brave face.

"I'm not afraid of the rockets the Jews are firing," said 10-year-old Mohammed Bakr, waiting outside the Shifa Hospital morgue for bodies to arrive. But, he acknowledged, "I like it better when it's quiet."

Mohammed and his cousin, 12-year-old Udai, said they had seen many dead bodies, including during Israel's last major offensive in Gaza four years ago. Both boys come from large families, as is typical in Gaza — Mohammed said he has nine siblings and Udai has six. Overwhelmed parents often find it difficult to keep tabs on all their children in dangerous times.

"Our parents tell us to stay home, but we don't," said Mohammed with a smile. "We want to see the martyrs."

Earlier, another group of boys tried to get closer to the ruins of a former Hamas government building, with smoke still rising from an Israeli strike. Hamas policemen tried to push them away, shouting that there was concern about unexploded ordnance.

Adults often pressure children not to show fear. Asked if they were scared, several boys waiting for Mahmoud's funeral procession to begin nodded. However, when an adult showed up and told them that Gazans are not afraid, they quickly stopped talking.

Child psychologists say the trauma of war stays with Gaza's children for a long time.

Hussam Nunu, the head of Gaza's Community Mental Health Program, said close to a third of the about 1,500 patients treated every year are children affected by stress and violence. After Israel's last offensive four years ago, the number of children suffering from post-traumatic stress disorders was "overwhelming," he said.

"Since then we have done a lot of outreach, but when another escalation like this happens, our work can be undone," he said.

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Associated Press Writer Lauren Bohn in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Thousands protest in Egypt against Israeli attacks on Gaza

CAIRO (Reuters) - Thousands of people protested in Egyptian cities on Friday against Israeli air strikes on Gaza and Egypt's president pledged to support the Palestinian enclave's population in the face of "blatant aggression".

Western governments are watching Egypt's response to the Gaza conflagration for signs of a more assertive stance towards Israel since an Islamist came to power in the Arab world's most populous nation.

President Mohamed Mursi is mindful of anti-Israeli sentiment among Egyptians emboldened by last year's Arab Spring uprising but needs to show Western allies his new government is no threat to Middle East peace.

His prime minister, Hisham Kandil, visited Gaza on Friday in a demonstration of solidarity after two days of strikes by Israeli warplanes targeting Gaza militants, who had stepped up rocket fire into Israel in recent weeks.

Gaza officials said 28 Palestinians, 16 of them civilians, had been killed in the enclave since Israel began the air offensive against the tiny, densely populated enclave ruled by the Islamist Hamas movement.

Three Israelis were killed by a rocket on Thursday.

"We see what is happening in Gaza as blatant aggression against humanity," Mursi said in comments carried by Egypt's state news agency. "I warn and repeat my warning to the aggressors that they will never rule over the people of Gaza.

"I tell them in the name of all the Egyptian people that Egypt today is not the Egypt of yesterday, and Arabs today are not the Arabs of yesterday."

The Egyptian foreign minister also spoke to his counterparts in the United States, Jordan, Brazil and Italy on Friday to discuss the situation in Gaza, a ministry statement said.

Mohamed Kamel Amr spoke to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the necessity of cooperation between the United States and Egypt to end the military confrontations. Amr stressed the necessity of Israel ending attacks on Gaza and a truce being rebuilt between the two sides, the statement said.

Israeli ministers were asked to endorse the call-up of up to 75,000 reservists after Gaza militants nearly hit Jerusalem with a rocket for the first time in decades and fired at Tel Aviv for a second day. Such a call-up could be the precursor of a ground invasion into Gaza, or just psychological warfare.

COLD PEACE

Mursi's toppled predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, was a staunch U.S. ally who upheld a cold but stable peace with Israel.

The new president has vowed to respect the 1979 peace treaty with the Jewish state. But relations have been strained by protests that forced the evacuation of Israel's ambassador to Cairo last year and cross-border attacks by Islamist militants.

More than 1,000 people gathered near Cairo's al-Azhar mosque after Friday prayers, many waving Egyptian and Palestinian flags.

"Gaza Gaza, symbol of pride", they chanted, and "generation after generation, we declare our enmity towards you, Israel".

"I cannot, as an Egyptian, an Arab and a Muslim, just sit back and watch the massacres in Gaza," said protester Abdel Aziz Nagy, 25, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Protesters were marching from other areas of Cairo towards Tahrir Square, the main rallying point for last year's uprising that toppled Mubarak.

In Alexandria, around 2,000 protesters gathered in front of a mosque, some holding posters demanding Egypt's border crossing to Gaza be opened to allow aid into the impoverished enclave.

Hundreds also gathered in the cities of Ismailia, Suez and al-Arish to denounce Israel's attacks.

Al-Azhar, Egypt's influential seat of Islamic learning, called on all Arabs and Muslims to unite in support of their brothers in Gaza, the state news agency MENA said.

"The Zionists are seeking to eliminate all (Palestinians) in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," Ahmed al-Tayyib, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, said in comments carried by MENA.

Al-Tayyib denounced the position of world powers on the Gaza crisis, describing them as having "forgotten their humanitarian duties ... and standing on the side of the aggressors," according to MENA.

(Reporting by Saad Hussein and Ayman Samir in Cairo, Abdel Rahman Youssef in Alexandria and Yousri Mohamed in Ismailia; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Israel launches scores of airstrikes into Gaza

Palestinian firefighters work at the scene of an Israeli air strike on a building in the Jebaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012. Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with more than 180 airstrikes early Saturday, widening a blistering assault on militant operations to include government and police compounds, militant leaders’ residences and a vast network of smuggling tunnels. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with nearly 200 airstrikes early Saturday, the military said, widening a blistering assault on Gaza rocket operations to include the prime minister's headquarters, a police compound and a vast network of smuggling tunnels.

The new attacks, which Gaza officials say left 10 dead, followed an unprecedented rocket strike aimed at the contested holy city of Jerusalem that raised the stakes in Israel's violent confrontation with Palestinian militants and extended the battlefield.

Israeli aircraft also kept pounding their original targets, the militants' weapons storage facilities and underground rocket launching sites. They also went after rocket squads more aggressively. The military has called up thousands of reservists and massed troops, tanks and other armored vehicles along the border with Gaza, signaling a ground invasion could be imminent.

Militants, undaunted by the heavy damage the Israeli attacks have inflicted, have unleashed some 500 rockets against the Jewish state, including new, longer-range weapons turned for the first time this week against Jerusalem and the Tel Aviv heartland. Following those attacks, the military deployed an Iron Dome rocket defense battery in central Israel on Saturday. The system, devised precisely to deflect the Gaza rocket threat, was deployed two months earlier than planned, the Defense Ministry said.

Ten people, including eight militants, were killed and dozens were wounded in the various attacks early Saturday, Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said. In all, 40 Palestinians including 13 civilians and three Israeli civilians have been killed since the Israeli operation began.

The violence has widened the instability gripping the Mideast. At the same time, revolts against entrenched regional regimes have opened up new possibilities for Hamas. Islamists across the Mideast have been strengthened, bringing newfound recognition to Hamas, shunned by the international community because of its refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence.

A high-level Tunisian delegation, led by Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem, drove that point home with a visit to Gaza on Saturday. The foreign minister's first stop was the still-smoldering ruins of the three-story office building of Gaza's prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

"Israel has to understand that there is an international law and it has to respect the international law to stop the aggression against the Palestinian people," Abdessalem told The Associated Press during a tour of Gaza's main hospital, Shifa, later Saturday. He said his country was doing whatever it can to promote a cease-fire, but did not elaborate.

It was the first official Tunisian visit since Hamas's violent 2007 takeover of the territory. Egypt's prime minister visited Friday and a Moroccan delegation is due on Sunday, following a landmark visit by Qatar's leader last month that implied political recognition.

Israel had been incrementally expanding its operation beyond military targets but before dawn on Saturday it ramped that up dramatically, hitting Hamas symbols of power. Israeli defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential decisions, said military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz personally ordered the scope of the airstrikes to be increased.

Haniyeh's three-story office building was flattened by an airstrike that blew out windows in neighboring homes. He was not inside the building at the time.

The building's security chief said Hamas scored points despite Israel's military superiority.

"Hamas responded to the Zionist aggression and hit them in the depth of their land," he said, referring to rockets aimed Friday at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Another airstrike brought down the three-story home of a Hamas commander in the Jebaliya refugee camp near Gaza City, critically wounding him and injuring other residents of the building, medics said.

Missiles smashed into two small security facilities and the massive Hamas police headquarters in Gaza City, setting off a huge blaze that engulfed nearby houses and civilian cars parked outside, the Interior Ministry reported. No one was inside the buildings.

The Interior Ministry said a government compound was also hit while devout Muslims streamed to the area for early morning prayers, although it did not report any casualties from that attack.

Air attacks knocked out five electricity transformers, cutting off power to more than 400,000 people in southern Gaza, according to the Gaza electricity distribution company. People switched on backup generators for limited electrical supplies.

In southern Gaza, aircraft went after underground tunnels militants use to smuggle in weapons and other contraband from Egypt, residents reported. A huge explosion in the area sent buildings shuddering in the Egyptian city of El-Arish, 45 kilometers (30 miles) away, an Associated Press correspondent there reported.

The Israeli military said more than 800 targets have been struck since the operation began.

The widened scope of targets brings the scale of fighting closer to that of the war the two groups waged four years ago. Hamas was badly bruised during that conflict, but has since restocked its arsenal with more and better weapons, and has been under pressure from smaller, more militant groups to prove its commitment to fighting Israel.

The attack aimed at Jerusalem on Friday and two strikes on metropolitan Tel Aviv showcased the militants' new capabilities, including a locally made rocket that appears to have taken Israeli defense officials by surprise. Both areas had remained outside the gunmen's reach before.

Just a few years ago, Palestinian rockets were limited to crude devices manufactured in Gaza. But in recent years, Israeli officials say, Hamas and other armed groups have smuggled in sophisticated, longer-range rockets from Iran and Libya.

Israeli leaders have threatened to widen the operation even further if the rocket fire doesn't halt. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said options included the possible assassination of Haniyeh, the prime minister.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in emergency session with Cabinet ministers Friday and they approved mobilizing up to 75,000 reservists, more than doubling the number authorized earlier this week. That would be the largest call-up in a decade. At a parking lot in central Israel, uniformed reservists waited to board buses. One prayed, covered in a Jewish prayer shawl.

Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, a military spokeswoman, said 16,000 reservists were called to duty on Friday and others could soon follow.

She said no decision had been made on a ground offensive but all options are on the table.

President Barack Obama spoke separately to Israeli and Egyptian leaders Friday as the violence in Gaza intensified. In a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he reiterated U.S. support for Israel's right to self-defense. To Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, he praised Egypt's efforts to ease regional tensions.

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Teibel reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Karin Laub in Gaza City and Matthew Dalyin Washington contributed reporting.

As eurozone economy shrinks, gov't debt loads grow

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Europe's government-debt crisis is no longer panicking financial markets. But it won't end until the region's economy starts growing strongly again.

And that will be a while.

The economy of the 17 countries that use the euro has shrunk for two straight quarters — a common definition of a recession — and analysts forecast little or no growth until 2014.

Without growth, there won't be enough tax revenue to help countries like Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal narrow their deficits and slow the expansion of their debts. Their debt burdens as a percentage of economic output, a key measure of fiscal health, look worse by the day.

The eurozone's combined debts are equal to about 93 percent of the region's gross domestic product this year and that figure is forecast to rise to peak at 94.5 percent next year. In 2009, the eurozone's debt-to-GDP ratio was 80 percent. A ratio above 90 percent is generally considered high and can put pressure on governments' borrowing costs.

"The worrying thing about the projections is, the peak seems to keep moving," says Raoul Ruparel of the Open Europe think tank.

The panic in European financial markets has eased in recent months largely because of aggressive action by the European Central Bank. The ECB said on Sept. 6 that it was willing to buy unlimited amounts of government bonds issued by countries struggling to pay their debts. That pledge quickly lowered borrowing costs for Spain and Italy, which earlier in the year faced the same kind of financial pressure that forced Ireland, Greece and Spain to seek bailouts.

But stemming the crisis and heading off a default by one or more countries aren't the same as stimulating growth. The United States economy remains weak several years after actions by the Federal Reserve helped arrest its financial crisis.

Europe's economy is being held back for several reasons:

— Austerity. Whether they got into trouble by overspending or after rescuing banks from a real-estate collapse, European governments are tackling their debts the same way: By raising taxes and cutting spending, including wage cuts for public sector workers. Italy slashed its deficit by 2.8 percent of GDP this year, but economists estimate that reduced growth by 1.5 percentage points. Less spending by the government and less spending by consumers who gave more of their income to the government were a drag on the Italian economy.

— Shaky banks. Banks reeling from the financial crisis are making it harder and more expensive for businesses in the hardest-hit countries to borrow. That's crimping investment and hiring by these companies across southern Europe. Companies in Greece or Portugal are often paying twice as much interest on loans as their German competitors.

— Consumers are holding back. Wage cuts have weighed on family budgets, and people are saving more because they're worried about further economic shocks. Together, these trends have reduced consumer spending by about 1 percent this year.

— Anti-business regulation. Laws in many European countries make it hard for companies to lay workers off in lean times, and that makes employers reluctant to hire. Bureaucracy chokes the process of starting a business or exporting goods. Greece's tax accounting rules were so onerous — permitting large penalties for minor paperwork errors — that the EU demanded the entire rulebook simply be abolished. Parliament finally complied last week.

European governments are slowly trying to make their economies more competitive. But in a September survey on global competitiveness by the World Economic Forum, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy ranked low because of poor access to financing and rigid labor markets.

It requires 11 bureaucratic filings to start a business in Italy. Fellow euro member Slovenia requires two.

Eurostat data released Thursday showed that for the second straight quarter the eurozone economycontracted. Output shrank by 0.1 percent in the July-September quarter, compared with the previous quarter.

The European Union's executive commission forecasts the eurozone economy will shrink by 0.4 percent for all of 2012 and grow by just 0.1 percent in 2013.

Without growth, there's little chance of cutting into an 11.6 percent jobless rate, the highest since the euro was introduced in 1999. Unemployment tops 25 percent in Greece and Spain.

Even with a modest recovery in late 2013 and 2014, the eurozone economy will be smaller adjusted for inflation than it was in 2008, when the Great Recession reverberated around the world.

Marco Valli, chief European economist for Unicredit, has charted recoveries from five crises going back to the late 1970s. He forecasts that the eurozone economy will not recover to its 2008 level until the first six months of 2015.

"This is unusual, in that even during the major financial crisis of the past, we have never seen such a slow recovery from a financial crisis," he says.

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Gaza kids at risk in crowded urban battle zone

By KARIN LAUB | Associated Press – 16 hrs ago

Associated Press/Mahmud Hams, Pool - Gaza's Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, right, and Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil, left, hold the body of a Palestinian boy they claim was killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza City, as they show the body to the media at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Friday, Nov. 16, 2012. Neighbors said the boy was killed in a blast around 8:30 a.m. Friday, around the time Kandil was entering the territory. Israel, which ordinarily confirms strikes, vociferously denied carrying out any form of attack in the area since the previous night. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hams, Pool)

A medic carries the body of a Palestinian boy, who they claim was killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza City, to an event in which media were invited to cover the visit of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Friday, Nov. 16, 2012. Neighbors said the boy was killed in a blast around 8:30 a.m. Friday, around the time Kandil was entering the territory. Israel, which ordinarily confirms strikes, vociferously denied carrying out any form of attack in the area since the previous night. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hams, Pool)

The mother of 10-month-old Palestinian infant Haneen Tafesh holds the dead body of her daughter prior to a funeral in Jabaliya, north Gaza, Friday, Nov. 16, 2012. According to hospital reports Tafesh died from wounds of an earlier Israeli strike. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — The image of a dead preschooler cradled by the prime ministers of Egypt and Gaza in a hospital hallway has drawn attention to the dangers Gaza's children face in this crowded urban battle zone.

Children make up half of Gaza's population of 1.6 million and seem to be everywhere in the current round of cross-border fighting between Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers.

Children loitered Friday outside a Gaza City morgue for a glance at the latest "martyrs." Others followed adults to funerals or even rushed to the site where Israeli missiles had just struck a government building and fire was still smoldering. Despite outward bravado, young boys of elementary school age said quietly that fear of airstrikes kept them awake at night.

So far, six of 28 Palestinians killed in Israel's offensive this week have been children, ranging in age from just under 1 to 14 years, according to Gaza health officials. Most were killed by shrapnel while in or near their homes. In Israel, 12 children were hurt in rocket attacks this week.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Hamas of using Gaza's civilians, particularly children, as human shields by launching rockets from crowded residential areas.

Gazans argue that Israel is unleashing massive airstrikes on their territory without regard for civilians. They say that even Israel's self-described surgical strikes on militant targets put civilians at grave risk in Gaza, one of the world's most densely populated places.

Mahmoud Sadallah, the 4-year-old Gaza boy whose death moved Egypt's prime minister to tears, was from the town of Jebaliya, close to Gaza City. The boy died Friday in hotly disputed circumstances.

The boy's aunt, Hanan Sadallah, and his grief-stricken father Iyad — weak from crying and leaning on others to walk — said Mahmoud was killed in an Israeli airstrike. Hamas security officials also made that claim.

Israel vehemently denied involvement, saying it had not carried out any attacks in the area at the time. Gaza's two leading human rights groups, which routinely investigate civilian deaths, withheld judgment, saying they were unable to reach the area because of continued danger.

Mahmoud's family said the boy was in an alley close to his home when he was killed, along with a man of about 20, but no one appeared to have witnessed the strike. The area showed signs that a projectile might have exploded there, with shrapnel marks in the walls of surrounding homes and a shattered kitchen window. But neighbors said local security officials quickly took what remained of the projectile, making it impossible to verify who fired it.

Mahmoud's 12-year-old cousin Fares was injured in the right leg by shrapnel and was still visibly shaken several hours after the incident. "It's terrifying. I don't sleep at night," the boy said of the massive Israeli air attacks of the past three days. "I'm staying up all night."

Mahmoud's body was taken to Gaza City's main Shifa hospital around midmorning, just as Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas was showing Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil around the wards of patients.

One of the Sadallah's neighbors, carrying the lifeless boy, pushed through a throng of Hamas security men to reach the politicians. Eventually, the two prime ministers were photographed cradling the child.

Fighting back tears, Kandil called on Israel to halt its offensive.

"What I saw today in the hospital, the wounded and the martyrs, the boy ... whose blood is still on my hands and clothes, is something that we cannot keep silent about," he said.

In the propaganda war between Israel and Hamas, the suffering of children has served as a powerful tool.

Israel has repeatedly accused Gaza militants of cynically exploiting children. Netanyahu alleged Thursday that "Hamas deliberately targets our children, and they deliberately place their rockets next to their children."

On Thursday, a rocket attack on an apartment building in the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Malachi wounded a baby and a 4-year-old child, along with killing three adults. Photos showed rescuers evacuating the baby, who was covered in blood. In addition, 10 children have been hurt by shrapnel, Israeli paramedics said.

The rockets fired from Gaza are relatively crude and Israel says their main purpose is to instill fear and harm Israeli civilians. Gaza militants have fired hundreds of rockets since Wednesday, paralyzing large areas of the country where civilians were ordered to stay close to home or bomb shelters. The fighting has forced tens of thousands of Israeli children to stay indoors, and schools in southern Israel have been closed for the past two days.

Israel, meanwhile, has pounded Gaza with dozens of rapid-fire airstrikes, with loud booms ringing out, sometimes just minutes apart. Few civilians ventured into the streets Friday, particularly after dark. In Gaza City, a tractor-pulled cart loaded with women and children had a white flag dragging on the ground behind it, presumably as an extra precaution.

Some of the Gaza boys trying to get close to the "action" put on a brave face.

"I'm not afraid of the rockets the Jews are firing," said 10-year-old Mohammed Bakr, waiting outside the Shifa Hospital morgue for bodies to arrive. But, he acknowledged, "I like it better when it's quiet."

Mohammed and his cousin, 12-year-old Udai, said they had seen many dead bodies, including during Israel's last major offensive in Gaza four years ago. Both boys come from large families, as is typical in Gaza — Mohammed said he has nine siblings and Udai has six. Overwhelmed parents often find it difficult to keep tabs on all their children in dangerous times.

"Our parents tell us to stay home, but we don't," said Mohammed with a smile. "We want to see the martyrs."

Earlier, another group of boys tried to get closer to the ruins of a former Hamas government building, with smoke still rising from an Israeli strike. Hamas policemen tried to push them away, shouting that there was concern about unexploded ordnance.

Adults often pressure children not to show fear. Asked if they were scared, several boys waiting for Mahmoud's funeral procession to begin nodded. However, when an adult showed up and told them that Gazans are not afraid, they quickly stopped talking.

Child psychologists say the trauma of war stays with Gaza's children for a long time.

Hussam Nunu, the head of Gaza's Community Mental Health Program, said close to a third of the about 1,500 patients treated every year are children affected by stress and violence. After Israel's last offensive four years ago, the number of children suffering from post-traumatic stress disorders was "overwhelming," he said.

"Since then we have done a lot of outreach, but when another escalation like this happens, our work can be undone," he said.

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Associated Press Writer Lauren Bohn in Jerusalem contributed to this report.