Israeli Raid Kills 17, Hurts 200 at Gaza Market as U.N., West Slam Deadly Shelling of U.N. School
At least 17 people were killed when Israeli warplanes fired on a packed Gaza market Wednesday in a deadly raid which came as Israel was observing a four-hour humanitarian lull, as U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon condemned an Israeli strike on a Gaza school that killed 16 people as "unjustifiable."
Thick black smoke billowed over the market site in the war-torn Shejaiya neighborhood as at least five ambulances raced to the scene where bodies lay strewn on the ground, an AFP correspondent said.
A bloodied, limp lifeless body lay in a pool of petrol and mud, his head crushed, one of at least 17 people who were killed. At least 200 were wounded, medics said.
It was supposed to have been a rare pause for Gaza's battered population of 1.8 million to go out in safety to stock up on goods, and for medics to evacuate the dead and wounded.
Instead, there was further bloody mayhem with more than 30 people killed across Gaza in the first three hours alone, sending the death toll from 23 days of unrelenting Israeli attacks soaring above 1,300.
Israel had said that its truce, which began at 1200 GMT, would not apply in places were troops were "currently operating" just hours after the army made what a "significant advance" into the narrow coastal strip.
Hamas denounced the four-hour lull as a publicity stunt, saying it had "no value."
The strike on the market came hours after Israeli tank shells slammed into a school sheltering more than 3,000 homeless people, killing 16 and drawing a furious response from the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
It was the second time in a week that a U.N. school housing refugees had been hit, and UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krahenbuhl lashed out at Israel.
"I condemn in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces," he said, indicating the school's location in the Jabaliya camp had been communicated to the Israeli army 17 times.
"No words to adequately express my anger and indignation," he wrote on his official Twitter account, saying that 3,300 people had been sheltering there at the time.
"I call on the international community to take deliberate international political action to put an immediate end to the continuing carnage," he said.
Later on Wednesday, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the strike as "unjustifiable," calling for those responsible to be held to account.
"This morning a U.N. school sheltering thousands of Palestinian families suffered a reprehensible attack," Ban said during a visit to Costa Rica.
"It is unjustifiable, and demands accountability and justice."
Ban accused the Israeli military of ignoring repeated communications on the location of the school.
"I want to make it clear that the exact location of this elementary school has been communicated to the Israeli military authorities 17 times, as recently as last night, just a few hours before this attack," he said.
"They are aware of the coordinates and exact location of where these people are."
Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis meanwhile joined international calls for an end to the bloodshed.
"We want the immediate establishment of a U.N.-monitored ceasefire to enable an escape from this bloody vortex, which is an offense to humanity," he said.
Speaking at U.N. headquarters in New York, Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson voiced his "shock" and "dismay" at the attack.
"They were there under U.N. protection, under our protection," he said of the refugees.
He stressed that civilians seeking to flee the fighting had "nowhere to go" given that Gaza's borders with neighboring countries were shut.
"This is a moment when you really have to say 'enough is enough,'" he said.
John Ging, the director of operations for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said 229 children have died in the latest fighting between Israel and Hamas, 21 percent of all casualties.
He said a "child per hour is killed" in Gaza.
The White House for its part condemned the shelling of the U.N.-run school.
"The United States condemns the shelling of a UNRWA school in Gaza, which reportedly killed and injured innocent Palestinians, including children, and U.N. humanitarian workers," National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said.
Meehan said Washington was "extremely concerned that thousands of internally displaced Palestinians who have been called on by the Israeli military to evacuate their homes are not safe in U.N. designated shelters in Gaza."
"We also condemn those responsible for hiding weapons in United Nations facilities in Gaza," she said.
"All of these actions, and similar ones earlier in the conflict, are inconsistent with the U.N.'s neutrality. This violence underscores the need to achieve a ceasefire as soon as possible," Meehan added.
French President Francois Hollande also condemned the shelling of the school.
Hollande "joins the U.N. secretary general in considering the act 'unjustifiable'," the president's office said in a statement.
Paris "demands the establishment of an immediate ceasefire," the statement said, adding that "all efforts must converge on this goal."
More than 100 people died in Israeli strikes across Gaza Wednesday, medics said, sending the Palestinian toll from 23 days of bombardment above 1,330.
And in Israel, the army said three troops had been killed in Gaza, raising the overall number of soldiers killed to 56 since the operation began on July 8.
The army said that three troops had been killed while trying to destroy a booby-trapped tunnel inside the Gaza Strip.
"Three soldiers were killed today inside the Gaza Strip," a spokeswoman told Agence France-Presse.
In a statement, the army said they had been killed "while uncovering an offensive tunnel shaft in a residence in the southern Gaza Strip.
"The house and the tunnel were booby trapped with two explosive devices that were detonated against the soldiers," it said.
The attack was claimed by Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, which claimed to have killed a group of soldiers during the bombing of a house in Khan Yunis where they were operating, in a statement was issued earlier in the day.
Another 27 soldiers were wounded in other incidents inside Gaza, the army said.
Media reports said the three soldiers had been killed and 15 wounded when a wall collapsed on them.
In a strike on a house in Tuffah neighborhood in northeastern Gaza City, seven members of the same family were killed, among them four children and a woman, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said
In the southern city of Khan Yunis, a single strike killed 10 members of the same family, including a child, Qudra said, and in a later incident, seven members of another family also died as Israeli tank shelling struck the city.
Later in the day, medics pulled the bodies of another seven people from the rubble of a house in Khan Yunis, also from the same family.
In another shelling attack in Gaza City, an 11-year-old disabled girl was killed, and a 16-year-old girl died in a strike on central Gaza.
Another 28 people were killed in various attacks across the Gaza Strip as Israeli ground troops made a "significant advance" into the tiny coastal territory which is home to 1.8 million people.
So far, 1,336 people have been killed -- 106 on Wednesday alone -- and more than 7,200 wounded since the start of the Israeli offensive, which began with an intensive air campaign on July 8 and expanded when Israel sent ground troops into the Gaza periphery on July 17.
Figures released at 1200 GMT on Tuesday by the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA give a figure of 1,118 dead, including at least 827 civilians, among them 243 children.
Of the 6,233 injured, 1,949 were children, it said.
OCHA also said up to 240,000 Palestinians had been internally displaced by the fighting, with the U.N. agency for refugees saying more than 200,000 of them had taken refuge in 85 of its shelters. The rest were staying with relatives or friends.
The Israeli army says that during its offensive it has attacked some 4,100 targets in Gaza, and militants have fired more than 2,670 rockets, of which 2,102 struck Israel and another 513 of which were shot down by its missile defense system, Iron Dome.
International efforts to end the bloody conflict have so far led nowhere, with current efforts focused on a top-level Palestinian delegation, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders, which was expected in Cairo in the coming days to discuss a new truce proposal.
In Tel Aviv, Israel's security cabinet was also locked in discussions over an Egyptian truce initiative, army radio said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had spoken to exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal and proposed the 24-hour truce, which the Hamas chief had "agreed," senior official Nabil Shaath told AFP.
But a Hamas spokesman denied agreeing to any new truce, saying they first wanted "an Israeli commitment" and its military chief Mohammed Deif said there would be no ceasefire without Israel lifting its eight-year blockade on Gaza.
Source: Agence France Presse
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/141068 |