Deaths in shelling of Gaza school enrage UN
July 31, 2014
The United States and United Nations condemned the school shelling and Hamas said it fired rockets into Israel in retaliation for both attacks. But hours after its condemnation the US said it had agreed to sell Israel fresh ammunition to replenish its dwindling supplies. At least 17 people were killed in the strike on the market in Shejaiya, near Gaza City, as Israel observed a four-hour humanitarian lull in other parts of the crowded coastal strip.
At least 200 people were wounded in the strike, medics said, on a day that saw at least 111 people killed.
Early Thursday two more people died of wounds sustained previously, bringing the death toll from 23 days of unrelenting Israeli attacks to 1,363.Hamas said Wednesday it fired rockets at Tel Aviv and the southern port city of Ashkelon in response to the market and school strikes.
The Israeli military said that a rocket hit open ground "in the Tel Aviv area" and another two were intercepted over Ashkelon. It said that a total of 81 rockets fell in Israel on Wednesday, with another nine shot down by missile defences and that Israel hit 88 targets in Gaza.
Israel had said its brief truce would not apply in places were troops were "currently operating", hours after the army made what it called a "significant advance" into the narrow coastal strip.
Hamas denounced the four-hour lull as a publicity stunt, saying it had "no value".
Furious response
The market strike came hours after Israeli shells slammed into a UN school in Jabalia refugee camp which was sheltering some 3,300 homeless Gazans, killing 16 and drawing a furious response from the United Nations.
"This morning a UN school sheltering thousands of Palestinian families suffered a reprehensible attack," UN chief Ban Ki-moon said on a visit to Costa Rica.
"It is unjustifiable, and demands accountability and justice."
The attack was also denounced by the White House in a carefully worded statement that avoided mentioning Israel.
"The United States condemns the shelling of a UNRWA school in Gaza, which reportedly killed and injured innocent Palestinians, including children, and UN humanitarian workers," a statement said.
The Pentagon later said it had granted an Israeli request for ammunition, including some from a stockpile stored by the US military on the ground in Israel for emergency use by the Jewish state.
But Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told his Israeli counterpart Moshe Yaalon that he was concerned about the deadly consequences of the spiralling conflict, and called for a ceasefire and end to hostilities.
Rights group Amnesty International had urged Washington to halt arms supplies to Israel.
"It is time for the US government to urgently suspend arms transfers to Israel and to push for a UN arms embargo on all parties to the conflict," it said in a petition to US Secretary of State John Kerry.
