Most of those killed in attack were children as residents of two southern villages reportedly trapped by days of tank shelling
Israeli forces shelled a UN-run school sheltering Palestinians in the northern Gaza strip, the Gaza health ministry said on Thursday, killing at least 15 people and raising the conflict’s death toll to nearly 750.
Israel Radio said, without citing a source, that most of those killed at the United Nations school were children.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the incident reported as a truce between the Jewish state and Hamas guerrillas remained elusive, despite intensive attempts at mediation.
Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, said that as well as the 15 dead, another 200 people were wounded in the attack.
More than 140,000 Palestinians have fled 17 days of fighting between Israel and Gaza militants, many of them seeking shelter in buildings run by the UN Refugee Works Agency (UNWRA).
Israeli forces are trying to stop militants from Hamas, which rules Gaza, and their allies from firing rockets into its territory.
Palestinians said residents of two southern villages were trapped by days of tank shelling, with medics unable to evacuate wounded.
Hamas fired rockets at Tel Aviv and said its gunmen carried out a lethal ambush on Israeli soldiers in north Gaza.
Israel earlier won a partial reprieve from the economic pain of its Gaza war with the lifting of a US ban on commercial flights to Tel Aviv.
With Washington’s encouragement, and the involvement of Turkey and Hamas ally Qatar, Egypt has been trying to broker a limited humanitarian ceasefire for the battered enclave.
One Cairo official said on Wednesday it could take effect by the weekend, in time for the Eidul Fitr festival next Monday or Tuesday, Islam’s biggest annual celebration at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
But a US official described any truce by the weekend as unlikely, as did an Israeli security cabinet minister who said the army would need one to two weeks to complete its main mission of razing tunnels used by Hamas for cross-border raids.
“If the talk is of a humanitarian hiatus for – this is not pleasant to say – removing bodies, all kinds of things that are connected to the civilian population in the short-term, this might be weighed,” the minister, Gilad Erdan, told Israel Radio.
“But I will oppose any ceasefire until it is clear both that the tunnels will be destroyed and what will happen in the post-ceasefire period – how we will guarantee that quiet for the residents of Israel will really be preserved in the long-term.”
With the attack on the school, the death toll in Gaza reached 747 on Thursday. Israeli tank fire and pre-dawn assaults killed 35 people, including an 18-month-old baby and six members of the same family, Palestinian officials said.
Buried beneath rubble
In southern Khuzaa and Abassan villages, they said, Israeli shelling left dead and wounded under rubble, while medical crews could not risk approaching. Elsewhere in Gaza, a UN aid agency said three of its teachers were killed in Israeli air strikes.
Israel has lost at least 32 soldiers in clashes inside Gaza and with Hamas raiders who have slipped across the fortified frontier in tunnels. The military confirmed there had been a new clash on Thursday but did not immediately publish casualties.
Palestinian rockets and mortar bombs have killed three civilians in Israel. Such shelling surged last month as Israel cracked down on Hamas in the occupied West Bank, triggering the July 8 air and sea barrage on the Gaza Strip that escalated into an invasion a week ago.
An ensuing wave of cancellations by foreign airlines sharply reduced traffic at Israel’s usually bustling international gateway at the height of the summer tourist season. It was hailed as a victory by Hamas and prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to appeal to the Obama administration to intervene.
The FAA cancelled the ban late on Wednesday after reviewing the security situation. The European Air Safety Agency (EASA) said on Thursday it was about to follow suit and lift its own recommendation to avoid flying to Tel Aviv.
May Allah put some sense into the evil and criminal Hamas leaders. They hide among civilians, they recruit young innocent boys and men & keep themselves hiding behind their ignorance.
We know Israel is going to use every opportunity to handout the oppression its own forefathers suffered less than a century ago but to give them all the excuses they could dream of is Hama's fault & may they suffer for the crimes against their own people in the afterlife. InshaAllah.
May Allah protect our muslim brothers & sisters in Palentine & may they forever prosper there.
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