More Than 30 Killed In Another Relentless Israeli Bombardment Across Gaza
The strike on the U.N.-run shelter early Wednesday killed 15 people, according to Gaza health ministry. Hours later, Israel declared a brief, unilateral pause in the bombardment. As Palestinians used the four-hour window to stock up on provisions, explosions rocked a crowded Gaza City market, killing 17.
By Sadho Ram — 31 Jul 2014, 02:34 PM — Updated over 10 years ago
On Wednesday, at least 15 people were killed when a UN school was hit by five shells during a second night of relentless bombardment across Gaza. More than 100 people were injured.
The strikes came in rapid succession. Around 5 a.m. on Wednesday at a United Nations school at the Jabaliya refugee camp, where 3,300 Palestinians had taken refuge from the fierce fighting in their Gaza Strip neighborhoods, what appeared to be four Israeli artillery shells hit the compound.
nytimes.com
One hit the street in front of the entrance, according to several witnesses. Two others hit classrooms where people were sleeping, and a fourth struck a house behind the school.
theguardian.com
Palestinian health officials said at least 20 people had been killed by what witnesses and United Nations officials said was the latest in a series of strikes on United Nations facilities that are supposed to be safe zones in the 23-day-old battle between Israel and Hamas and other militants.
nytimes.com
"My house was burned, and death followed us here," said Ahmed Mousa, 50, who was in the school courtyard when the shells hit. "Where am I supposed to go?"
Pierre Krahenbuhl, commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, condemned "in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces"
He said in a statement: “Last night, children were killed as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN-designated shelter in Gaza. Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced."
theguardian.com
“We have visited the site and gathered evidence. We have analysed fragments, examined craters and other damage. Our initial assessment is that it was Israeli artillery that hit our school, in which 3,300 people had sought refuge. We believe there were at least three impacts."
wsj.com“It is too early to give a confirmed official death toll. But we know that there were multiple civilian deaths and injuries including of women and children and the UNRWA guard who was trying to protect the site. These are people who were instructed to leave their homes by the Israeli army.”
theguardian.com
It was the sixth time that UNRWA schools had been struck, Krahenbuhl added
“Our staff, the very people leading the humanitarian response are being killed. Our shelters are overflowing. Tens of thousands may soon be stranded in the streets of Gaza, without food, water and shelter if attacks on these areas continue.”
theguardian.com
Lt. Col. Peter Lerner of the Israeli military said no United Nations facility had been targeted
A military spokeswoman said that Palestinian militants had “opened fire at Israeli soldiers from the vicinity” of the school on Wednesday morning, and that Israeli troops had “responded by firing toward the origins of the fire.”
nytimes.com
On the same day, the Israeli military announced a four-hour humanitarian cease-fire but said that it would not apply to places where soldiers were operating, and that residents should not return to areas they had been asked to evacuate
That only added to the confusion after four days of on-again, off-again lulls and mixed messages from various leaders about cease-fires and negotiations.
voanews.com
In an apparent outcome of the confusion, at least 17 Palestinians were reported killed and as many as 200 were wounded when multiple shells hit an area in east Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood, which residents thought was temporarily safe but which the Israelis considered part of a combat zone. The dead included a Palestinian photojournalist and civil defense worker.
theguardian.com
"Firefighters and ambulances arrived, then more shells — five or six landed," said Mohammed Shamaly, 32, whose home was in the targeted neighbourhood of car-repair garages and other workshops on Saladin Street. "I saw bodies torn apart."
The Health Ministry in Gaza said at least 10 people had been killed in Israeli strikes elsewhere during Israel’s unilateral four-hour pause. The “window” was to be from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., and the military said troops would “respond to any attempt to exploit this window to harm Israeli civilians” and soldiers.
nytimes.com
Hamas rejected the Israeli-declared lull, saying in a statement that it was “just for media consumption and has no value” because it excluded the areas near the border where hostilities continued, making it impossible to evacuate the wounded from there.
voanews.com
The Israeli announcement came after Israel appeared to have intensified its assault overnight, even as Palestinian leaders struggled to coordinate their efforts to pursue a cease-fire through talks in Cairo
By evening, the Palestinian death toll since the latest conflict began on July 8 totaled at least 1,328, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Three Israeli soldiers were killed Wednesday while uncovering a tunnel shaft under a house in southern Gaza, the military announced, bringing the total number of dead to 56; two Israeli civilians and a foreign farmworker have also been killed by mortar and rocket fire.
nytimes.com
Israel has hit 4,100 sites in Gaza: 1,566 of them connected to rocket launching, 167 that stored weapons and 746 “command-and-control centers,” the Israeli military said in its statement. The military said that 2,670 rockets and mortars had been fired toward Israel, and that about 280 of them had fallen short and landed within Gaza.
theguardian.com
Far fewer sirens signaling incoming rockets sounded in Israel on Wednesday than in previous days. But in Gaza, there was little sign of a letup.
At least 20 people were killed when Israeli shells struck a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip.
Image via nyt.comAmong the casualties were 10 members of the Astal family who were killed by an Israeli missile as they huddled in their diwan, or meeting room, according to news reports and the Health Ministry.
theguardian.com
Jabaliya, a refugee camp just north of Gaza City, has been under intense shelling since Tuesday afternoon, with 50 people killed over a 24-hour period, health officials said. Already one of Gaza’s most densely crowded areas, its streets were packed in recent days with people who had fled their homes closer to the border. More and more had crowded into the Abu Hussein girls’ elementary school.
nytimes.com
Meanwhile, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that "all available evidence" suggested that Israeli artillery had hit a United Nations school in Gaza full of civilians who thought they were in a safe zone
“Nothing is more shameful than attacking sleeping children,” the secretary general told reporters in San Jose, Costa Rica, according to a transcript provided by his office. It was Mr. Ban’s strongest comments to date on attacks on United Nations installations in Gaza, where Palestinians have been taking shelter. Six United Nations staff members have been killed in the current conflict so far.
wsj.comSandwiched between the sea and the Israeli and Egyptian borders, Gazans basically have nowhere to run except to United Nations compounds, where they hope for protection, the United Nations deputy secretary general, Jan Eliasson said
Some 1.7 million people live in Gaza, a strip of land that he equated to the size of metropolitan Detroit or Washington. He said also that officials in Mr. Ban’s office were drafting a series of options to protect civilians, in response to a vague request from the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, for an international protection force.
nytimes.com