Palestinians sit in a debris-strewn street after what witnesses said was an Israeli air strike that killed two children Photograph: SUHAIB SALEM/REUTERS Photograph: SUHAIB SALEM/REUTERS
Palestinians sit in a debris-strewn street after what witnesses said was an Israeli air strike that killed two children Photograph: SUHAIB SALEM/REUTERS Photograph: SUHAIB SALEM/REUTERS
We're going to wrap up our live blog coverage for the day. Here's a summary of where things stand:
An Israeli strike on a UN shelter in Beit Hanoun killed at least 15 Palestinians and wounded 200, mostly women and children seeking cover there. The Israeli military said it was responding to fire in the area.
"I was shocked and appalled by what has happened in Beit Hanoun," UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said. "It is totally unacceptable." Reporters captured a horrible scene at the shelter and nearby hospital.
At least 797 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the current conflict and 5,130 wounded, according to health ministry figures.
Rocket fire out of Gaza diminished on Thursday, the Israeli military reported. There were no reports of casualties from rockets. The IDF said some Hamas rockets had fallen inside Gaza. The military said it had taken out 31 tunnels in the conflict.
A large protest march took shape in Ramallah in the West Bank and moved toward the Qalandia checkpoint, where clashes were reported.
US secretary of state John Kerry, British foreign secretary Philip Hammond, Ban and others worked toward a ceasefire agreement, to be brokered by Egypt and helped on the Hamas side by Qatar, but encouraging signs were few.
UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon said he was "shocked and appalled" by the attack on the UNRWA shelter in Beit Hanoun Thursday. He spoke to reporters in Cairo before holding talks with US secretary of state John Kerry.
"I was shocked and appalled by what has happened in Beit Hanoun," Ban said. "It is totally unacceptable."
Un Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (L) makes a statement regarding the violence in Gaza before his meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Cairo July 24, 2014. Photograph: POOL PHOTO/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: POOL PHOTO/AFP/Getty Images
The Guardian's Harriet Sherwood (@harrietsherwood) in Jerusalem writes about the assertion of the Israeli army that Hamas uses civilians as human shields. "The picture is more complicated than either side claims," Harriet writes:
Deliberately placing non-combatants in and around targets to deter enemy attack – the definition of human shields – is illegal under international law.
The Geneva conventions state: "The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations. The parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations."
International law also bans the use of medical units or prisoners of war to deter enemy attack.
However, even if Hamas were violating the law on this matter, it would not legally justify Israel's bombing of areas where civilians are known to be.
The Guardian's Peter Beaumont (@petersbeaumont) visited the scene of the strike today on the UNRWA shelter in the school in Beit Hanoun. At least 15 were killed and 200 wounded, he reports:
Most of the injured were women and children. Among the dead was a mother and her one-year-old baby. UN staff had been attempting to organise the school's evacuation when the attack took place.
On the question of what hit the shelter, Peter reports:
Although missiles belonging to Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups in Gaza do sometimes fall short, there was no visible evidence of debris from broken Palestinian rockets in the school. The injuries and the number of fatalities were consistent with a powerful explosion that sent shrapnel tearing through the air, in some cases causing traumatic amputations.
The surrounding neighbourhood bore evidence of multiple Israeli attacks, including smoke from numerous artillery rounds and air strikes. One building was entirely engulfed by flames.
Thursday's assault on the school – one of the grimmest incidents of the war – occurred at about 2.50pm as the playground was crowded with families waiting to be ferried to safety, Peter reports:
According to survivors, one shell landed in the schoolyard followed by several more rounds that hit the upper stories of the building.
Most of the wounded were moved initially to a local hospital where terrified women and children clung to each other, waiting for news of relatives. A shell exploded about 50 metres from the hospital building as they waited.
Nour Hamid, 17, was hoping for news of her sister. As she attempted to comfort her terrified nephew, she said: "We were packing up to leave when the attack happened. We were standing outside when they started hitting us, some of the women holding their babies. My sister-in-law was one of the injured. There were bodies everywhere, most of them women and children."\
The Guardian's Mona Mahmood (@monamood) has spoken on the telephone with Rulla Ali, a resident of Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City. "We feel a bit lucky," Rulla tells Mona, "though the rockets drop every five minutes":
The full fledged attack against our district for the whole day makes it very difficult to soothe the terrified kids... The kids are turning violent and fighting among each other being strained by the war. We can only sleep for two hours a day, thanks to the naval vessels which commence their shelling against houses and residential towers in Gaza after 12 midnight. With every possible lull in bombardment, we run to ring up our relatives to make sure they are still alive, or we would get news about a relative or friend who gets killed or wounded in other parts of Gaza.
The power company was hit yesterday and our share of electricity reduced to two hours, during which we hurry to charge mobiles, laptops, wash clothes and watch news on TV. We tend to use a single mobile per day to save power, and connect it to the radio to keep listening to the news. I connect my mobile to the laptop to post what is happening in my neighbourhood. I do not trust the Israeli media in telling the truth of the war to the world.
[...] Two of my uncles who live in our neighbourhood with their families in a compound of six flats survived a deadly bombardment last Monday that have scratched out their residential compound. It is a miracle that none of them was killed. They are staying with us now, the only thing we chat about is the total number of the victims for the last 24 hour. It has become very common to find three or four families are staying in a single house sharing food and power and fear. Our district is narrow and there are few families who were wiped out entirely by the bombardment.
Food is growing short and rotting for lack of power, Rulla tells Mona, "but this is the last thing we would complain about":
It is a war and most of the shops are shut. The only available vegetables now are tomato, cucumber, aubergine and onion brought by the farmers who have doubled the prices as most of the their farms are burned by the Israeli warplanes. There is no dairy product at all. We hardly can break our fasting at sunset which is the peak time for the Israeli warplanes, same at dawn meal before we start our fasting.
US secretary of state John Kerry will not stay in the Middle East indefinitely trying to broker a ceasefire to halt the Gaza conflict and will decide soon whether the parties are willing to come to an agreement, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday, Reuters reports:
"Gaps remain between the parties, so his focus is on finding a formula that both sides can accept," said the senior U.S. official. "But he isn't here for an indefinite amount of time and in the near future he will determine whether there is a willingness to come to an agreement on a ceasefire."
As our live blog coverage continues, here's a summary of where things stand:
Video and pictures began to emerge of a devastating attack on a UN shelter in Beit Hanoun in north Gaza where hundreds of people including many children had sought refuge. At least 15 people were killed in the attack, Gaza health officials said.
Reporters at the scene said Israeli tank shells and air strikes hit the UN shelter. Israel said it had responded to a source of hostile fire in the area, that it warned civilians to leave and Hamas rockets had fallen in the area.
Palestinian health officials say 788 have been killed in the conflict so far, including 190 children. Dozens of Gazans have been killed on Thursday, including six family members and an 18-month-old infant boy killed in Jebaliya refugee camp and five people killed in an airstrike on a home in Abassan near Khan Yunis.
The Israeli military said that 13 rockets had been fired out of Gaza Thursday and hit Israeli territory and seven additional rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome system.
American and British diplomats continued to work with peers in the Gulf, Egypt, Israel and the West Bank to try to reach a ceasefire. The US state department declined to discuss the negotiations.
Comments (…)
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion