Thursday 24 July 2014 15.26 Palestinian health officials have said at least 15 people were killed and many wounded when Israeli forces shelled a UN-run school sheltering Palestinian refugees in northern Gaza.
The director of a local hospital said various medical centres around Beit Hanoun were receiving the wounded.
"Such a massacre requires more than one hospital to deal with it," said Ayman Hamdan, director of the Beit Hanoun hospital.
A Reuters photographer at the scene said pools of blood had collected on the ground and on student desks in the courtyard of the school near the apparent impact mark of the shell.
Scores of crying families who had been living in the school ran with their children to the hospital where the victims were being treated a few hundred meters away.
Laila Al-Shinbari, a woman who was at school when it was shelled, told Reuters families had gathered in the courtyard expecting to be evacuated shortly in a Red Cross convoy.
"All of us sat in one place when suddenly four shells landed on our heads ... Bodies were on the ground, (there was) blood and screams. My son is dead and all my relatives are wounded including my other kids," she wept.
Chris Gunness, spokesman for the main UN agency in Gaza UNRWA, confirmed the strike and criticised Israel.
"Precise co-ordinates of the UNRWA shelter in Beit Hanoun had been formally given to the Israeli army ... Over the course of the day UNRWA tried to coordinate with the Israeli Army a window for civilians to leave and it was never granted," Mr Gunness said on his Twitter page.
Earlier, Mr Gunness told Reuters that Israeli forces had bombed UN shelters on three separate occasions since Monday, in incidents which did not cause injuries.
The Israel army had no immediate comment on the reports.
UN humanitarian chief concerned at mounting casualties
Meanwhile, UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos has expressed deep concern about the mounting civilian casualties in Gaza.
She warned that it was "almost impossible" for Palestinians to shelter from Israeli airstrikes.
Almost 730 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in 17 days of conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Israel says at least 32 of its soldiers have died along with three civilians killed in rocket attacks out of Gaza.
"The reality in Gaza is, it doesn't matter how hard Israel tries to minimise harm, this is an extremely overcrowded stretch of land," Ms Amos told BBC radio.
"Forty-four percent of that land has been declared a no-go zone by the Israeli army so there aren't that many places for people to go."
She described "people crowded into a sliver of land, almost impossible for them to move".
The UN's Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator added her call for a ceasefire to end this "devastating situation".
"No one is denying the right of Israel to defend itself but there are huge concerns about the impact this is having on ordinary people on the ground," Ms Amos said.
Meanwhile, French President Francois Hollande has announced an €11m aid package to the besieged Gaza Strip.
An advisor to Mr Hollande said the humanitarian aid, eight million of which will be given to the Palestinian Authority and the remainder to UN bodies and NGOs working in Gaza, was approved after a meeting with non-governmental organisations working in the strife-torn region.
Gaza truce unlikely 'in coming days'
A Gaza truce involving a withdrawal of Israeli ground forces from the Palestinian territory would be unlikely before next week, an Israeli cabinet minister has said.
"I do not see a ceasefire in the coming days where the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) leave," Science Minister Yaakov Peri, a former security chief, told the Walla news site.
He added that troops needed more time to complete their mission of destroying cross-border tunnels used by Hamas fighters.
"I can say authoritatively that two or three days will not be enough to finish tackling the tunnels."
It comes as US aviation authorities lift a ban on flights to Tel Aviv that had been in force for two days, prompted by rockets being launched from Gaza.
However, many global airlines are still avoiding flying into Israel.
Meanwhile, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, speaking in Qatar, praised the group's fighters.
He said they had made gains against Israel and said he supported a humanitarian truce but a ceasefire would only be acceptable in exchange for easing the plight of Gazans.
"Let's agree first on the demands and on implementing them and then we can agree on the zero hour for a ceasefire.
"We will not accept any proposal that does not lift the blockade.
"We do not desire war and we do not want it to continue but we will not be broken by it," he said.
Adding to the pressure on Israel, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said there was "a strong possibility" that it was committing war crimes in Gaza, where 729 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have died in the fighting, according to Palestinian health officials.
Ms Pillay also condemned indiscriminate Islamist rocket fire out of Gaza and the United Nations Human Rights Council said it would launch an international inquiry into alleged violations.
Israel denied any wrongdoing. "Get lost," Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said on her Facebook page in response to the investigation.
In Gaza fighting rages on, displacing thousands more Palestinians in the battered territory as US Secretary of State John Kerry said efforts to secure a truce between Israel and Hamas had made some progress.
Mr Kerry met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday.
"We have certainly made some steps forward. There is still work to be done," said Mr Kerry.
An Egyptian official said he expected a humanitarian truce to go into effect by the weekend, in time for the Eid al-Fitr festival, Islam's biggest annual celebration that follows the fasting month of Ramadan.
However, a senior US official played down the Egyptian official's confidence that there would be a truce during Eid, saying this was a US hope but it was by no means locked in.
Mr Kerry, who plans to stay in Cairo until tomorrow, has been working through Mr Abbas, Egypt and other regional proxies because the US, like Israel, shuns Hamas as a terrorist group.
Hamas brushed off the US diplomat's appeal, saying it would not hold fire without making gains.
"Our interest and that of our people is that no agreement should be made before the conditions of factions of resistance are met," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.
Israel launched its offensive on 8 July to halt rockets by Hamas and its allies, which have struggled under an Israeli-Egyptian economic blockade on Gaza and been angered by a crackdown on their supporters in the nearby West Bank.
After an aerial and naval bombardment failed to quell the out-gunned guerrillas, Israel sent ground forces into Gaza last Thursday, looking to knock out Hamas's rocket stores and destroy a vast, underground network of tunnels.
An astronaut on the International Space Station yesterday tweeted an image showing fighting in the region from space.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
15 killed as Israel bombs UN school in Gaza
Dengan url
http://newsdeadlineup.blogspot.com/2014/07/15-killed-as-israel-bombs-un-school-in.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
15 killed as Israel bombs UN school in Gaza
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
15 killed as Israel bombs UN school in Gaza
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar