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Israel plans limited ceasefire amid outrage over attacks on UN schools
Israel-Gaza conflict: Israel calls ceasefire as world condemns Rafah UN school shelling
(about 2 hours later)
The Israeli military is to hold fire for seven hours in parts of the Gaza Strip from 10am (8am BST).
Israel has said it will observe a new humanitarian ceasefire after it received widespread international condemnation for the bombing of another UN-run school in Gaza – but won’t stop fighting in the southern city where the incident itself took place.
But it said the "humanitarian window" did not apply to areas where troops were still operating.
The missile strike that killed 10 in Rafah yesterday was the seventh time a UN shelter had been struck since the conflict began on 8 July, and was described as a “moral outrage and a criminal act” by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Israel withdrew most of its ground troops from the Gaza Strip yesterday in an apparent winding down of the nearly month-long operation against Hamas. But fighting continued in parts of Gaza.
The military said its “humanitarian window”, which was set to start at 10am (8am BST) this morning and last for seven hours, would be enforced in all parts of Gaza except where troops were already operating – in other words, Rafah.
The military said it would respond to any attacks during that time.
The Obama administration was also quick to issue an unusually strong response to the Rafah school attack, saying the US was “appalled” by the “disgraceful shelling”. The US Department of State called upon Israel, a long-term ally, to do more to prevent harm to civilians.
Ten people were killed in what United Nations and Palestinian officials said was an Israeli air strike near a UN shelter. The United States also lashed out at Israel, saying it was "appalled" by the "disgraceful" attack.
Israel has withdrawn most of its soldiers from northern and central Gaza, and officials said that it was close to the completion of its efforts to destroy Hamas’s network of cross-border tunnels throughout the Strip.
And with Hamas vowing to continue its fight, it remained uncertain whether Israel could unilaterally end the war.
A military spokesperson said that, as with other truces, the military “will return fire” if rockets continue to be used by militants.
Israel launched its military operation in Gaza on July 8 in response to weeks of heavy rocket fire, carrying out hundreds of air strikes across the crowded seaside territory. It then sent in ground forces on July 17 in what it said was a mission to destroy the tunnels used by Hamas to carry out attacks.
Hamas currently has envoys deployed to Egypt for negotiations on a longer-term peace deal, which Israel has now shunned in a show of anger at the suicide bomb ambush that killed three soldiers in Rafah on Friday.
Hamas has fired more than 3,000 rockets into Israel during what has turned into the bloodiest round of fighting ever between the two enemies.
The militant group confirmed that it did not recognise the latest ceasefire called by Israel, accusing the military of trying “to divert attention away from the Israeli massacres”. Its spokesperson, Sami Abu Zuhri, said: “We do not trust such a calm and we urge our people to exercise caution.”
Lt Col Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said the bulk of ground troops had been pulled out of Gaza after the military concluded it had destroyed most of the tunnel network.
Meanwhile, a militant leader has been killed by an Israeli airstrike launched just before dawn in northern Gaza. Daniel Mansour, the northern commander of key Hamas allies the Islamic Jihad, died when a missile hit his home.
He said Israel had detected some 30 tunnels that were dug along the border for what he called a "synchronised attack" on the Jewish state.
Gazan officials said almost 1,800 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed and more than a quarter of its 1.8 million residents displaced. Israel has lost 64 soldiers in combat and three civilians to Palestinian cross-border shelling.
"We've caused substantial damage to this network to an extent where we've basically taken this huge threat and made it minimal," he said. The army had thousands of troops in Gaza at the height of the operation.
Many of those evacuated from their homes in Gaza have taken shelter in UN-run facilities, the latest strike on which Mr Ban called a “gross violation of international humanitarian law”.
In southern Israel, armored vehicles could be seen rolling slowly on to the back of large flatbed trucks near the Gaza border, while soldiers folded flags from atop a tank and rolled up their belongings and sleeping bags.
Israel said it was investigating the incident, but added that it may have been related to attempts to kill militants from Islamic Jihad driving nearby.
Lt Col Lerner said, however, that the operation was not over and that Israel would continue to target Hamas' rocket-firing capabilities and its ability to infiltrate Israel.
The military has accused Hamas of using UN facilities as shields for intense rocket-firing activity, and on Monday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement saying: “Hamas has an interest in Gaza residents suffering, thinking that the world will blame Israel for their suffering.”
While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to press on against Hamas, he is coming under international pressure to halt the fighting because of the heavy civilian death toll.
UN officials say more than three-quarters of the dead have been civilians, including the 10 people killed yesterday at a UN school that has been converted into a shelter in the southern town of Rafah.
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon called the attack a "moral outrage and a criminal act" and demanded a quick investigation, while the US State Department condemned the strike in unusually strong language.
According to witnesses, Israeli strikes hit just outside the main gates of the school. The Red Crescent charity said the attack occurred while people were in line to get food from aid workers. Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said in addition to the dead, 35 people were wounded.
Robert Turner, director of operations for the UN Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza, said the building had been providing shelter for some 3,000 people. He said the strike killed at least one UN staffer.
"The locations of all these installations have been passed to the Israeli military multiple times," Mr Turner said. "They know where these shelters are. How this continues to happen I have no idea."
Inside the UN school's compound, several bodies, among them children, were strewn across the ground in puddles of blood. "Our trust and our fate are only in the hands of God!" one woman cried.
The Israeli military said it had targeted three wanted militants on a motorcycle nearby and was "reviewing the consequences of this strike".
In the current round of fighting, UN shelters have been struck by fire seven times. UNRWA, the UN agency that assists Palestinian refugees, says Israel has been the source of fire in all instances. But it has also said it found caches of rockets in vacant schools three times.
Israel accuses Hamas of using civilian areas for cover and says the Islamic militant group is responsible for the heavy death toll because it has been using civilians as "human shields".
