Strike kills 15 seeking safety at Gaza school

A Palestinian medic holds two children, wounded in an Israeli strike on a compound housing a U.N. school in Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip, as other medics treat serious cases at the emergency room of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, Thursday, July 24, 2014. Israeli tank shells hit the compound, killing more than a dozen people and wounding dozens more who were seeking shelter from fierce clashes on the streets outside. Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra says the dead and injured in the school compound were among hundreds of people seeking shelter from heavy fighting in the area. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)
A Palestinian medic holds two children, wounded in an Israeli strike on a compound housing a U.N. school in Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip, as other medics treat serious cases at the emergency room of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, Thursday, July 24, 2014. Israeli tank shells hit the compound, killing more than a dozen people and wounding dozens more who were seeking shelter from fierce clashes on the streets outside. Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra says the dead and injured in the school compound were among hundreds of people seeking shelter from heavy fighting in the area. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- A United Nations school in Gaza crowded with hundreds of Palestinians seeking refuge from fierce fighting came under fire Thursday, leaving at least 15 civilians dead.

Palestinian officials blamed Israel for the shelling, which also wounded dozens and contributed to the highest daily death toll so far in the current round of fighting. However, the Israeli military said the school "was not a target in any way" and raised the possibility the compound was hit by Hamas rockets.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon denounced the attack, saying the killing must "stop now." But the diplomatic efforts spanning the region were stalled: Israel demands that Hamas stop firing rockets without conditions, while Gaza's Islamic militant rulers insist the seven-year Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the territory must end first.

"Many have been killed -- including women and children, as well as U.N. staff," Ban said in a statement, though he did not elaborate.

The U.N. said the attack happened as it was trying to achieve a humanitarian pause in the fighting to allow the evacuation of civilians from the area.

Eight of the dead and about 80 wounded were taken to the Kamal Odwan Hospital, the nearest facility, where rooms and hallways were packed with wounded patients and their relatives after the attack.

Many said they had fled with their families from their homes days before because of Israeli shelling and that the situation in the school had been getting worse as food and water became scarce.

They said that on Thursday, they had been instructed to gather in the school's courtyard because the Red Cross was sending buses to take them to another school in a relatively safer part of Gaza.

Kamel al-Kafarne, who was in the school, said people were boarding the buses when three shells hit.

"We were about to get out of the school, then they hit the school. They kept on shelling it," he said.

Many people appeared shocked that the attack had occurred inside the school grounds, a place they assumed would be spared.

"I don't know where we can go now," said Amina Nassir, whose two daughters were injured in the attack. "We can't go home and even the schools are unsafe."

It was the fourth time a U.N. facility has been hit in Gaza fighting since the Israeli operation began July 8. The U.N.'s Palestinian refugee agency said more than 140,000 residents of Gaza are staying in 83 schools where it runs shelters.

The agency also has said it discovered dozens of Hamas rockets hidden inside two vacant schools in the area, but U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said the school hit Thursday in the northern town of Beit Hanoun was not one of them.

The U.N. also has expressed alarm that rockets found in the schools disappeared after they were turned over to local authorities in Gaza.

"Those responsible are turning schools into potential military targets, and endangering the lives of innocent children," U.N. staff members and anyone seeking shelter there, a U.N. statement said.

Fighting was fierce across Gaza on Thursday, and at least 119 Palestinians were killed, making it the bloodiest day of the 17-day war. That raised the overall Palestinian death toll to at least 803, Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said.

Israel has lost 32 soldiers, all since July 17, when it widened its air campaign into a full-scale ground offensive. Two Israeli civilians and a Thai worker in Israel also have been killed by rocket or mortar fire.

Israel has said the war is meant to halt the relentless rocket fire on its cities by Palestinian militants in Gaza and to destroy a sophisticated network of cross-border tunnels that Hamas is using to sneak into Israel to try to carry out attacks inside communities near the border.

Israel has insisted it does its utmost to prevent civilian casualties and said Hamas puts Palestinians in danger by hiding arms and fighters in civilian areas.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said Thursday that Israeli shells hit the U.N. school. But Israel's chief military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Moti Almoz, said the military was investigating and that it was too early to know if the deaths were caused by an errant Israeli shell or Hamas fire.

"We are not ruling out the possibility that it was Hamas fire," he said.

Another army spokesman, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, said there had been Hamas fighting in the area.

"We do not target the U.N. We do not target civilians. There was no target in the school. Gunmen were attacking soldiers near the facility. The school was not a target in any way," Lerner said.

The military had urged the U.N. and the Red Cross to evacuate the school for three days leading up to the shelling, Almoz said, adding that there had been an increase in Hamas attacks from the area in recent days.

"Despite repeated calls from the military to the U.N. and international organizations to stop the shooting from there because it endangers our forces, we decided to respond. In parallel to our fire, there was Hamas fire at the school," Almoz said.

Jacques de Maio, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation for Israel and the Occupied Territories, said Beit Hanoun represented "a kind of conundrum where two parties are fighting, where you have civilians and military targets that are simply too close to each other." That did not exonerate either side, he said.

Cease-fire efforts

As the fighting continued Thursday, so did international efforts to broker a cease-fire.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spent the Thursday in Cairo calling on regional leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and officials from Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, to press for a solution.

Israeli media reported this morning that negotiators were closer to agreeing to a humanitarian pause in the fighting that would allow Israel's forces to remain in Gaza to continue destroying Hamas' tunnel network.

The deal could also let more Palestinians living in Gaza enter Egypt at the Rafah border crossing where their access is currently limited. The humanitarian pause in fighting could begin this weekend and would coincide with the Monday start of Eid al-Fitr, the celebration that marks the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

A senior U.S. official who participated in the talks cautioned that negotiations were continuing into today and that no agreement had yet been reached. The official described a range of ideas that represented proposals and demands from all sides involved. The official was not authorized to be named in discussing the negotiations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Heading late Thursday night into a third meeting with Ban over the past four days, Kerry said "we still have more work to do."

"So we're going to keep at it," Kerry said. "It's so imperative to try to find a way forward."

The U.S. wants the violence to stop before it tries to negotiate each side's demands for a broader peace agreement. For Hamas, that includes the release of Palestinian prisoners in addition to an end to the 7-year-old economic blockade imposed by Israel after the Islamic militant group violently seized control of Gaza from the Western-backed government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Netanyahu made no reference to the cease-fire efforts in underscoring his determination Thursday to neutralize the rocket and tunnel threats.

"We started this operation to return peace and quiet to Israel ... and we shall return it," he said after meeting with British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond in Israel.

More than 2,300 rockets have been fired at Israel from Gaza since July 8, and the Israeli military says it has uncovered 31 tunnels leading from Gaza to Israel, some of which have been used by Hamas to try to carry out attacks inside Israel. On Thursday, soldiers detained two militants as they emerged from such a tunnel, the army said.

Elsewhere, violence spread to the West Bank, where thousands of Palestinians protesting the Gaza fighting clashed with Israeli soldiers late Thursday in Qalandia, near the West Bank city of Ramallah. At least one Palestinian was killed and dozens were injured, a Palestinian doctor said.

New president

In Jerusalem on Thursday, Shimon Peres ended his term as president of Israel, handing the ceremonial but high-profile office over to Reuven Rivlin, a legislator from the hawkish Likud Party.

As foreign minister in 1994, Peres won the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, for peace talks at that time. He has continued to be a proponent for peace with the Palestinians since.

He spoke with sadness Thursday about the current round of fighting.

"I did not imagine that in the last days of my presidency I would be called upon, once more, to comfort bereaved families," Peres, 90, said at the hand-over ceremony. He blamed the Islamic militant group Hamas for starting the current war by firing barrages of rockets at Israel but also emphasized that "Israel is not the enemy of the people of Gaza."

Rivlin's theme was similar: "We are not fighting against the Palestinian people, and we are not at war with Islam," he said. "We are fighting against terrorism."

Rivlin, 74, a stalwart in Netanyahu's Likud Party, has said he will turn the presidency's priorities inward, focusing on domestic issues, such as the rising cost of living and affordable housing.

While Rivlin is respected as a champion of civil rights, he does not support the creation of an independent Palestinian state and has been a longtime supporter of Jewish West Bank settlements.

In an interview last week, his last granted as president to international media, Peres was optimistic, forecasting an end to Israel's 47-year occupation of the West Bank and putting his faith in Abbas as a solid partner to secure peace.

"I don't think that Israel can or shall remain an occupying force," he said. "There are ups and downs, it takes time, but there is also progress that people don't note."

He said that once out of office, he intends to facilitate investment in education, health care, agriculture and technology throughout the Middle East.

Information for this article was contributed by Ibrahim Barzak, Ian Deitch, Tia Goldenberg, Yousur Alhlou, Mohammed Daraghmeh, Maggie Michael, Lara Jakes and Edith M. Lederer of The Associated Press and by Ben Hubbard, Anne Barnard, Isabel Kershner and staff members of The New York Times.

A Section on 07/25/2014

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