United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Thursday said he was appalled by an attack on a UN-run school in the Gaza strip that killed civilians, including children, and UN staff.
“Circumstances are still unclear. I strongly condemn this act,” Ban said in a statement.
“Many have been killed – including women and children, as well as UN staff.”
The Gaza health ministry said at least 15 people had been killed and some 200 wounded. Israel Radio, without citing a source, reported that most of those killed at the United Nations school were children.
United States Secretary of State John Kerry pressed regional leaders to nail down a Gaza ceasefire yesterday as the civilian death toll soared, and further violence flared up between Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.
Mediators hope any truce in the Gaza Strip can coincide with a Muslim festival that starts next week, and are looking to overcome seemingly irreconcilable demands from Israel and Hamas-led Islamist fighters, who have been locked in conflict since July 8.
As the diplomacy continued, so did the fighting.
Gaza officials said Israeli strikes killed 33 people yesterday, including the head of media operations for Hamas ally Islamic Jihad and his son. They put the number of Palestinian deaths in 18 days of conflict at 822, most of them civilians.
Militants fired a barrage of rockets out of Gaza, triggering sirens across much of southern and central Israel, including at the country’s main airport. No injuries were reported, with the Iron Dome interceptor system knocking out many of the missiles.
The Gaza turmoil stoked tensions in the nearby occupied West Bank, where US-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas governs in uneasy coordination with Israel.
Medics said five Palestinians were killed in separate incidents near the cities of Nablus and Hebron, including one shooting that witnesses blamed on an apparent Jewish settler.
On Thursday night, 10,000 demonstrators marched in solidarity with Gaza near the Palestinian administrative capital Ramallah - a scale recalling mass revolts of the past. Protesters surged against an Israeli army checkpoint, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails, and Palestinian medics said one was shot dead and 200 wounded when troops opened fire.
Hamas wants Gaza opened up
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal had on Wednesday voiced support for a humanitarian truce, but only if Israel eased restrictions on Gaza’s 1.8 million people. Hamas wants Egypt to open up its border with Gaza, too, and demands that Israel release hundreds of prisoners rounded up in the West Bank last month following the kidnapping and killing of three Jewish seminary students.
Such concessions appear unlikely, however, as both Israel and Egypt consider Hamas a security threat.
One Cairo official said next week’s Eid-ul-Fitr festival, which concludes Ramadan, was a possible date for a truce.
But US officials were circumspect on progress made by Kerry, whose mediation has involved Egypt, Turkey, Qatar and President Abbas, as Washington, like Israel and the European Union, won’t deal directly with Hamas, which it considers a terrorist group.
“Secretary Kerry has been on the phone all morning, and he will remain in close touch with leaders in the region over the course of the morning as he continues work on achieving a ceasefire,” said a senior US State Department official in Cairo, which has been Kerry’s base over the last four days as he has tried to bring about a temporary end to the conflict.
On Thursday, a US official said Kerry was seeking a way to bridge gaps between Israel and Hamas but that the top US diplomat would not stay in the region “for an indefinite amount of time.”
Israel insists that, even if such a ceasefire is agreed, its army will continue digging up tunnels along Gaza’s eastern frontier, a mission that could take between one and two weeks.