Gaza crisis: US condemns fatal attack on UN school, says culprit unknown – as it happened

A partial ceasefire has commenced in Gaza

Aid organisation Christian Aid have issued a furious statement at the devastation in Gaza.

William Bell, Christian Aid’s Policy and Advocacy Officer for Israel and the Palestinians, called the scale of the suffering “unprecedented” and blamed “international political impotence and indifference” for the situation in Gaza. An edited version is below, the full version can be read on the Christian Aid website.

This latest outbreak of violence is not about Gaza. The people who are now dying in their hundreds are paying the price for a lethal combination of international political impotence and indifference to decades of Palestinian dispossession and displacement. It appears from its actions that Israel disregards the most basic rights of Palestinians.

Those who have died deserve us to be honest about what is happening. The world cannot claim to be unaware, as it has been paying for the consequences of consistent political failure, weak Palestinian leadership and Israel’s actions since the first Palestinian refugees were forced from their homes in 1947. Billions have been poured into Palestinian ‘development’ aid, while Israeli actions have fuelled ‘de-development’ and undermined a viable Palestinian economy by occupying more land for illegal settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank and restricting access and movement for people and goods.

Israel controls and impacts on almost every aspect of Palestinian life. This includes forcing them through humiliating checkpoints; allowing settler violence to go unpunished; imposing a seven year blockade on Gaza; arresting and holding thousands without charge and demolishing homes and livelihoods.

Anyone bearing witness to these facts on the ground will no doubt conclude that any possibility of a two-state solution has all but failed. Despite the international community’s claim that it is the only solution, it has not acted to stop Israel usurping Palestinian land and natural resources and has allowed Palestinians to become the highest per capita recipients of donor aid in the world.

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Christian Aid believes that in order for there to be security for both peoples, the climate of impunity must come to an end and each individual and collective action be accounted for through a framework guided by international law and justice. This is the essence of peace: building new relationships founded on equity. If non-violent forms of justice, such as respect for international law, are routinely ignored, then the international community will continue to fund an unsustainable status quo.

In a statement the IDF said:

The IDF has authorized a temporary window in the Gaza Strip. The window will commence today between 15:00-19:00.

The humanitarian window will not apply to the areas in which IDF soldiers are currently operating.

Residents must not return to areas that have previously been asked to evacuate.

The IDF will respond to any attempt to exploit this window to harm Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers.

The IDF have just confirmed to Harriet Sherwood that they will operate a ceasefire between 3-7pm this afternoon. Harriet reports:

The IDF has confirmed that there will be a four-hour “time window” from 3pm this afternoon, in which military activity will cease. In other words, a humanitarian ceasefire. They said they will give more details soon.

Humza Yousaf, the Scottish Government Minister for External Affairs & International Development, has announced £500,000 from Scotland to the UNRWA emergency appeal.

More from Harriet Sherwood. Former Israeli president Shimon Peres calls for Israel to find a way to stop the conflict.

Shimon Peres, who was Israel’s president until earlier this month, has said the war in the Gaza Strip has been exhausted and that a way had to be found to stop it, Israel Radio reported.

A diplomatic resolution of the conflict should include restoring the authority of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to the Gaza Strip, he added.

Peres, who at 91 has lived through every war fought by the State of Israel, is an influential voice in Israeli public opinion, though he was a regular irritant to prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu during his term as president.

In this video grieving relatives and injured children are seen after a night of intense Israeli air strikes on Gaza in the Jabaliya neighbourhood of Gaza City.

Nick Casey, middle east correspondent, for the Wall Street Journal has posted a picture of a destroyed classroom of the UN school hit this morning in Jabalia.

Footage broadcast by Hamas TV allegedly shows fighters climbing out of tunnels in to Israel.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency has strongly condemned an Israeli strike on a UN school being used as a shelter in the Jabaliya refugee camp, which killed at least 19 people and injured 90.

The agency appeared hit out at a lack of international action to end the violence with the words: “[T]his is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgracedToday the world stands disgraced.”

In a statement UNRWA Commissioner-General, Pierre Krähenbühl said: “I call on the international community to take deliberate international political action to put an immediate end to the continuing carnage.”

Here is the statement in full:

Last night, children were killed as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN designated shelter in Gaza. Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced.

We have visited the site and gathered evidence. We have analysed fragments, examined craters and other damage. Our initial assessment is that it was Israeli artillery that hit our school, in which 3,300 people had sought refuge. We believe there were at least three impacts. It is too early to give a confirmed official death toll. But we know that there were multiple civilian deaths and injuries including of women and children and the UNRWA guard who was trying to protect the site. These are people who were instructed to leave their homes by the Israeli army.

The precise location of the Jabalia Elementary Girls School and the fact that it was housing thousands of internally displaced people was communicated to the Israeli army seventeen times, to ensure its protection; the last being at ten to nine last night, just hours before the fatal shelling.

I condemn in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces.

This is the sixth time that one of our schools has been struck. Our staff, the very people leading the humanitarian response are being killed. Our shelters are overflowing. Tens of thousands may soon be stranded in the streets of Gaza, without food, water and shelter if attacks on these areas continue.

We have moved beyond the realm of humanitarian action alone. We are in the realm of accountability. I call on the international community to take deliberate international political action to put an immediate end to the continuing carnage.