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Israeli strikes hit a crowded shopping area in Gaza City Wednesday, hours after tank shells tore through the walls of a U.N. school crowded with war refugees in the deadliest of a series of air and artillery attacks that pushed the Palestinian death toll above 1,300 in more than three weeks of fighting.
Tank shells slammed into the compound before dawn, said Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, which is sheltering more than 200,000 people displaced by the fighting at dozens of U.N. schools across Gaza.
Gaza health ministry official Ashraf al-Kidra said at least 17 people were killed and about 90 wounded in the school strike. Four of the dead were killed just outside the school compound, two in their home nearby and two in the street, after returning from pre-dawn prayers, their relatives said.
The Israeli military said it fired back after its soldiers were targeted by mortar rounds launched from the vicinity of the school.
Hundreds of people crowded the school courtyard after the strike, some dazed, others wailing.
"Where will we go?" asked Aishe Abu Darabeh, 56. "Where will we go next? We fled and they (the Israelis) are following us."
In all, 1,359 Palestinians have been killed — 114 on Wednesday — and 7,100 wounded since the July 8 start of fighting, al-Kidra said.
The U.N. said it was the sixth school to be hit since the conflict began, and the second to cause deaths. At least 15 civilians also were killed last Thursday when the courtyard of a U.N. school in Gaza City was hit.
"I reached levels of anger and indignation about the fact that despite all the efforts that we have put in, to ensure that places like these would be respected, that people in them would be protected when they were there — that this was not the case is intolerable," said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, the UNRWA commissioner general.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Wednesday's trike "outrageous" and "unjustifiable," and demanded an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas.
"Nothing is more shameful than attacking sleeping children," Ban said on his arrival in San Jose, Costa Rica. He added that "all available evidence points to Israeli artillery as the cause" and noted that Israeli military authorities had received the coordinates of the school from the United Nations 17 times, including on Tuesday night.
The White House also condemned the deadly shelling. White House spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan also said the U.S. is "extremely concerned" that thousands of Palestinians aren't safe in U.N.-designated shelters, despite being told by Israel's military to leave their homes.
Hours later, an Israeli airstrike hit a crowded shopping area in the Shijaiyah district in Gaza City, killing at least 16 people, including local Palestinian photographer Rami Rayan, who was wearing a press vest at the time, and wounding more than 200 people, Gaza health officials said.
An earlier airstrike also hit a warehouse in the Shijaiyah district, which has been frequently targeted by Israel. That caused a fire and sent a large cloud of black smoke billowing into the sky as firefighters and ambulances arrived at the scene.
Brig. Gen. Mickey Adelstein, a senior military official, said the structure was a clinic operated by the U.N. but the U.N. said it could not confirm that.
Israel says its Gaza operation is meant to stop Hamas rocket and mortar fire that has reached increasingly deeper into its territory and to destroy a sophisticated network of tunnels used for attacks inside Israel. Hamas has steadfastly refused efforts to forge a truce, insisting its demands including the lifting of an Israeli and Egyptian blockade must be met first.
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