MIDDLE EAST: UN relief agency condemns Israeli attacks, strike on UN school in Gaza kills three

Record ID: 777872

  • Title: MIDDLE EAST: UN relief agency condemns Israeli attacks, strike on UN school in Gaza kills three
  • Date: 6th January 2009
  • Summary: GAZA CITY, GAZA (JANUARY 6, 2009) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF THE UN SCHOOL WHICH WAS TARGETED IN ISRAELI STRIKE
  • Embargoed: 21st January 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA8YP3TXW17WZZ3OZ0KVV0P224H
  • Story Text: An Israeli air strike killed three Palestinians in a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday (January 6), medical workers and U.N.
    officials said.
    Hundreds of Palestinians sought refuge at the school after fleeing fierce fighting between Israeli soldiers and Hamas fighters in the northern Gaza Strip, the officials said.
    Speaking outside the hospital where the wounded were taken, John Ging, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), called the 11-day conflict "unjustified" and "unnecessary."

    "This is a very, very tragic situation. It's unprecedented in its scale. It is also unprecedented in its futility, It's a completely unjustified and unnecessary conflict," said Ging after visiting some of the wounded.
    Israel moved forces into a southern Gaza town on Tuesday and demanded Hamas be prevented from rearming as a main condition for a ceasefire in an 11-day-old conflict in which hundreds of Palestinians have been killed.
    Israel did not confirm the incident.

    "I am not sure the incident is still confirmed on our side, so I suggest we wait and see. The fact that Hamas is putting civilians in areas where military activity takes place is horrible, I think. I think Hamas should be held accountable for any civilian in those areas which he located those warehouses, these storages of Grads (rockets) and so on," Israeli Army Spokesperson Avital Leibovich told Reuters.
    The Israeli military said it has killed 130 Palestinian militants in Gaza since Saturday, a figure that suggested the total Palestinian death toll since December 27 might be close to 700. Bodies may still be on the battlefield.
    Many of the Gaza Strip's 1.5 million people say there are shortages of food, water and electricity power in the coastal enclave. In southern Israel, schools remained closed and hundreds of thousands of people have been rushing to bomb shelter at the sound of alarms heralding incoming rockets.
    Israel launched the current offensive after Hamas called off a six-month truce last month and stepped up cross-border rocket attacks in what it called a response to Israeli raids and a blockade of the Gaza Strip.
    Heavy Israeli casualties in the Gaza fighting could erode strong public support for the operation and affect the outcome of Israel's Feb. 10 national election.
    Israel pulled its troops and more than 8,000 settlers out of Gaza in 2005 after 38 years of occupation in a move that many at the time hoped would lead to a breakthrough for relations between Israel and the Palestinians.
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