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Israeli shelling kills dozens at UN school in Gaza• Reports of more than 40
killed in and around UN shelter
• 12 members of family killed in Gaza City air strikeChris McGreal and Rory
McCarthy in Jerusalem, and Mark Tran
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 6 January 2009 15.28 GMT Article historyThe civilian
death toll in Gaza increased dramatically today, with reports of more than 40
Palestinians killed after missiles exploded outside a UN school where hundreds
of people were sheltering from the continuing Israeli offensive.
Two Israeli tank shells struck the
school in Jabaliya refugee
camp, spraying shrapnel on people inside and outside the building, according to
news agency reports.
The medical director of the hospital in Jabaliya told the Guardian 41 bodies had
been brought in so far and more could be on the way. Reuters journalists filmed
bodies scattered on the ground amid pools of blood and torn shoes and clothes. A
donkey lay on the ground in its own blood.
In addition to the dead, several dozen people were wounded, hospital officials
said. The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports.
Elsewehere at least 12 members of an
extended family, including seven young children, were killed in an air strike on
their house in Gaza City. The bodies of the Daya family were pulled from
the rubble of a house in Gaza city's Zeitoun district after it was hit by two
Israeli missiles. The dead included
seven children aged from one to 12 years, three women and two men. Nine
other people were believed to be trapped in the rubble.
Hours earlier, three young men – all
cousins – died when the Israelis bombed another UN school, the
Asma
primary school in Gaza City. They were among about 400 people who sought
shelter there after fleeing their homes in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.
The UN, which said the school was clearly marked, said it was "strongly
protesting these killings to the Israeli authorities and is calling for an
immediate and impartial investigation".
"Where it is found that international humanitarian law has been violated, those
responsible must be held to account. Under international law, installations such
as schools, health centres and UN facilities should be protected from attack.
Well before the current fighting, the UN had given to the Israeli authorities
the GPS co-ordinates of all its installations in Gaza, including Asma elementary
school."
The killings take the total toll in Palestinian lives since the Israelis
launched their assault on the Gaza Strip 11 days ago to above 600. Doctors at
Gaza hospitals say that at least one-fifth of the victims are children and a
large number of women are among the dead.
Israel continues to insist that the bulk of those killed are Hamas and Islamic
Jihad fighters, although its claim to be going to extraordinary lengths to
target only "terrorists" has been undermined by one of its own tanks firing on a
building being used by Israeli troops, killing four.
The sharp spike in the number of civilian casualties came as Israeli troops and
tanks moved into Gaza's second largest city, Khan Younis, for the first time
today, supported by intensive artillery strikes as the military pledged to press
on with its attack.The heaviest fighting has been in northern Gaza, with
witnesses reporting wave after wave of bombing strikes across the north of the
territory accompanied by gunfire from helicopters and artillery from land and
sea. Thousands of Palestinians have been ordered to leave their homes or forced
to flee the fighting.
In Shajaiyeh, east of Gaza City, Israeli troops seized control of three
apartment blocks and set up gun positions on the rooftops. Residents were locked
in their homes and soldiers confiscated their mobile phones, neighbours said.
Jews_kill_own
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Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, said his country's troops would continue
their operation despite mounting Palestinian casualties and growing
international calls for a ceasefire.
"Hamas has so far sustained a very heavy blow from us, but we have yet to
achieve our objective, and therefore the operation continues," Barak said.
The Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, said the offensive was intended to
change permanently the shape of Israel's conflict with Hamas. "When Israel is
targeted, Israel is going to retaliate," she said. Israel has rejected calls for
a ceasefire.
The military said it had bombed more smuggling tunnels across the border with
Egypt, in the south, and hit more than 40 other sites across Gaza including
buildings storing weapons and rocket launching areas.
In Gaza, Mahmoud Zahar, the most senior leader of Hamas in the strip and a
hardliner in the movement, appeared on the party's al-Aqsa television station
and gave a defiant speech threatening attacks not only in Gaza but elsewhere.
"The Zionists have legitimised the killing of their children by killing our
children. They have legitimised the killing of their people all over the world
by killing our people," Zahar said. He urged Hamas fighters to "crush your
enemy".
Another Hamas figure, a recognised military spokesman called Abu Ubaida, said
thousands of Hamas fighters were waiting in Gaza to take on the Israeli
military, and that rocket attacks would increase. More than 40 were fired into
southern Israel yesterday, including one that landed in an empty kindergarten,
which, like all schools near the Gaza border, has been closed since the conflict
began.. Israeli police said a total of 520 rockets had been fired in the past 11
days of fighting.
Israeli troops are now deployed in and around the major urban areas of Gaza,
particularly to the north, in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya. Using
leaflets, telephone calls and radio announcements, they have ordered residents
in many areas to leave their homes, forcing at least 15,000 Palestinians to flee
to safety elsewhere. At least 5,000 are staying in 11 different UN schools and
shelters.
The UN said more than 1 million Gazans were still without electricity or water
and that it was increasingly difficult for staff to distribute aid or reach the
injured. It said more industrial diesel was needed to reopen the strip's sole
power plant, which has been shut for a week. Ten transformers have been damaged
in the fighting.
More wheat grain is needed for food handouts, and the UN said Karni, the main
commercial crossing, should be reopened to allow it in. Four ambulances and
three mobile clinics were destroyed when bombs hit the headquarters of the Union
of Health Care Committees in Gaza City.
John Holmes, the UN emergency relief coordinator, said Gaza represented an
"increasingly alarming" humanitarian crisis, and that the territory was running
low on clean water, power, food, medicine and other supplies since Israel began
its offensive. Israeli leaders claim there is no humanitarian crisis.
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