Top photos of the day: Monday, July 21, 2014

From the archives:Cubs shortstop Ernie Banks uses a Tele-Binocular device to exercise his eye muscles on July 21, 1961. At the time, Banks was in a slump and a specialist diagnosed him as having faulty depth perception caused by overactivity. Eye exercises were prescribed to correct the problem. | Sun-Times file photo

A selection of some of the best photographs from around the world:

An Israeli soldier inspects an Israeli home allegedly hit by a Hamas rocket in Sderot, Israel. Yesterday marked the bloodiest day of the operation “Protective Edge” yet, as 13 Israeli soldiers died and the death toll in Gaza passed 500 people. | Getty Images

Palestinians pray over Hamas green flag-draped bodies of 17 members of the Abu Jamea immediate and extended family, killed by an Israeli strike at their house, during their funeral at the main mosque in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. The top Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip signaled Monday that the Islamic militant group will not agree to an unconditional cease-fire with Israel, while Israel’s defense minister pledged to keep fighting “as long as necessary,” raising new doubt about the highest-level mediation mission in two weeks. | AP Photo

Israeli soldiers mourn during the funeral of Israeli soldier Moshe Malko in Jerusalem, Israel. Moshe Malko was killed during the operation Protective Edge, raising the number to 18 Israeli soldiers that have been killed since the beginning of the ground invasion. | Getty Images

President Barack Obama speaks on the Ukraine situation outside the Oval Office in Washington, DC. Obama urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to compel Ukrainian separatists to cease their efforts of hindering investigators at the site of last week’s Malaysian Airlines disaster. | Getty Images

A Buddhist monk holding a Cambodian National Flag shouts slogans while listening to speeches during a demonstration to deliver petitions to different embassies in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Thousands of protesters and monks march through the streets of Phnom Penh to deliver petitions to the French, British, American, Russian and Chinese embassies, before arriving at the Vietnamese Embassy. The protesters, organised by the Federation of Cambodian Intellectuals and Students (FCIS) and leaders of the Khmer Krom community, are demanding an apology from Vietnamese Embassy First Counsellor Tran Van Thong, who recently said that the former Kampuchea Krom provinces were held by Vietnam before their occupation by France. Ahead of the protest, Phnom Penh municipal authorities banned the protest, threatening the protesters who defied the ban could be jailed for up to 15 years. | Getty Images

Kecil, a 6-month-old Bornean orangutan at Brookfield Zoo and is currently off exhibit, bonding with Maggie, 53, who is his surrogate mom. It will be several months before Kecil and Maggie are on exhibit in the zoo’s Tropic World: Asia exhibit. | Jim Schulz/Chicago Zoological Society

The nose turret of a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber as it flies above Porter County in Indiana. | Michael Gard/For Sun-Times Media

Engineer Daniel Schubert holds lettuce at the German Aerospace Center in Bremen, Germany. Scientists and engineers from the German Aerospace Center are developing greenhouses for a potential Mars colony. The greenhouses will contain combined life-support systems which use recycled urine to manufacture fertilizer, helping to grow vegetables for a lunar and Mars environment. The first greenhouse will be tested for nine months in 2016/17 in an inhospitable environment in the Antarctic. | Getty Images

Members of United We Dream, hold a mock coffin during a protest on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Activists staged “funeral services for the Republican Party” because “the GOP has embraced radical right-wing policies and has actively called for the separation of families and the deportation of Dreamers.” | Getty Images