Gaza Crisis: Arab League Calls for International Protection of Occupied Territory from Israel

The Arab League has called on the "international community" to end Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip and to protect Palestinian civilians, ahead of a foreign ministers' meeting.

The League "affirmed the necessity of urgent steps for an immediate end to the Israeli aggression on Gaza and providing protection for the Palestinians," in a report to be submitted to the ministerial gathering.

"[Israeli] air strikes on Gaza have become a matter that cannot be met with silence anymore," it said.

The League "demands that the international community intervene through its legal and humanitarian institutions to protect the Palestinian people," it said.

Israel claimed to have shot down a drone near Ashdod which was fired from Gaza a week after it began its air offensive on the occupied territory in what it claims is in response to rockets fired from the territory.

More than 170 Palestinians - two-thirds of whom were civilians and 30 children - have been killed by Israeli airstikes, according to Gaza health officials. There have been no Israeli casualties in Hamas' rocket fire.

Israel says that approximately 1,000 rockets have been fired into the country from the coastal enclave while the military has launched more than 1,300 air strikes, according to an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman.

The IDF claimed to have shot down a drone near Ashdod which was fired from Gaza a week after it began its air offensive on the occupied territory in what it claims is in response to rockets fired from the territory.

With no sign of the siege ending, the US Secretary of State has been leading the call from world figures for a truce between Israel and Hamas. Qatar, Turkey and Egypt have all been suggested as potential mediators of a ceasefire.

Israel has mobilised approximately 40,000 troops onto the Gaza border amid fears that a full-scale ground invasion may be launched.

Israeli commandos conducted their first ground incursion in the campaign dubbed "Operation Protective Edge", storming Gaza Beach to attack a suspected rocket launch site.