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| Israeli Shells Said to Hit School in Gaza, Killing 15 | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| GAZA CITY — Israeli artillery fire hit a United Nations-run school serving as a shelter in northern Gaza early Wednesday, killing 15 Palestinians taking refuge there, the Palestinian health ministry said. | GAZA CITY — Israeli artillery fire hit a United Nations-run school serving as a shelter in northern Gaza early Wednesday, killing 15 Palestinians taking refuge there, the Palestinian health ministry said. |
| Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said Wednesday morning he was looking into what struck the school. | |
| Witnesses said at least two shells landed at Abu Hussein school, located in the middle of Jabaliya refugee camp, around 4:30 a.m., hitting the stairway and a classroom. | Witnesses said at least two shells landed at Abu Hussein school, located in the middle of Jabaliya refugee camp, around 4:30 a.m., hitting the stairway and a classroom. |
| Jabaliya, the most densely populated area in the Gaza Strip, has come under artillery fire since Tuesday afternoon. The shelling has killed at least 50 people there in the past 24 hours, according to the ministry. | Jabaliya, the most densely populated area in the Gaza Strip, has come under artillery fire since Tuesday afternoon. The shelling has killed at least 50 people there in the past 24 hours, according to the ministry. |
| The streets in Jabaliya, which was already overpopulated, are packed with people who fled their homes in the eastern and northern Gaza Strip following the Israeli ground invasion. | The streets in Jabaliya, which was already overpopulated, are packed with people who fled their homes in the eastern and northern Gaza Strip following the Israeli ground invasion. |
| Also at dawn, an Israeli airplane fired a missile at the al-Astal family council in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, killing 10 people from the extended family, according to local reports and the health ministry. | Also at dawn, an Israeli airplane fired a missile at the al-Astal family council in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, killing 10 people from the extended family, according to local reports and the health ministry. |
| The Israeli military denied responsibility for 16 deaths at a different United Nations school serving as a shelter, in Beit Hanoun, last week, saying that the only piece of Israeli ordnance to hit the school compound, an errant mortar, struck when the courtyard was empty. Witnesses have said they heard four or five booms as hundreds milled in the courtyard, preparing to evacuate the school. | |
| Robert Turner, the Gaza-based director of the United Nations relief agency that runs the school, said previously that two other of its | |
| school-shelters had been hit by Israeli strikes, one of them twice. | |
| Mr. Turner said early Wednesday he could not discuss the Jabaliya incident because he did not yet have all the information. | |
| Officials at Mr. Turner’s agency have reported finding rockets hidden in three of its schools. | |
| Israel struck five mosques overnight that a military statement said “were utilized for terror purposes” such as storing weapons, or | |
| providing access to tunnels or lookout points. The military said it had detonated three tunnel routes in the previous 24 hours. | |
| Since the current operation began July 8, the Israeli military statement said, Israel has hit 4,100 sites in Gaza, 1,566 of them connected to rocket-launching, 167 places that stored weapons and 746 “command-and-control centers.” The military said there had been 2,670 rockets and mortars fired toward Israel, and that about 280 of them had fallen short and landed within Gaza. | |
| The Palestinian health ministry put the Palestinian death toll from the past three weeks of fighting at 1,258, many of them civilians. On the Israeli side, 56 had died as of Tuesday evening, 53 of them soldiers. |