UN shelter in Gaza shelled, killing at least 15
A UN shelter in northern Gaza was shelled on Thursday, causing "multiple deaths and injuries," according to a spokesman for the UN refugee agency.
At least 15 people were killed and scores hurt when a school compound in Beit Hanoun, designated as a haven for the displaced, was bombarded by Israeli forces amid heavy fighting with Palestinian militants, a Gaza health official said.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed his horror at the attack on the school.
"Many have been killed - including women and children, as well as UN staff," he said in a statement. "...I strongly condemn this act."
Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the UN Refugee and Works Agency, or UNRWA, tweeted that the precise coordinates of the shelter had been relayed to Israeli forces...
..Pools of blood lay on the ground and on students' desks in the courtyard of the school near the apparent impact mark of the shell, according to a Reuters photographer at the scene.
Scores of crying families who had been living in the school ran with their children to a hospital where the victims were being treated a few hundred metres away. Laila Al-Shinbari, a woman who was at the school when it was shelled, told Reuters that families had gathered in the courtyard expecting to be evacuated shortly in a Red Cross convoy.
"All of us sat in one place when suddenly four shells landed on our heads ... Bodies were on the ground, (there was) blood and screams. My son is dead and all my relatives are wounded including my other kids," she wept.
Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry, said that as well as the 15 dead, another 200 people had been wounded in the attack. The director of a local hospital said various medical centres around Beit Hanoun were receiving the wounded.
A cease-fire accord remains elusive despite intense diplomatic efforts.
Earlier, the Palestinian death toll in Gaza rose above 720 in overnight and early-morning bombardment...
...the United Nations and others have estimated that up to three-quarters of the dead are civilians, many of them women and children...
http://www.theage.com.au/world/un-shelter-in-gaza-shelled-killing-at-least-15-20140725-zwmz1.html