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 Some 3,000 Palestinians, including many women and children, were
taking refuge in the building in Jebalya refugee camp when it came
under fire around dawn, Khalil al-Halabi, director of northern Gaza
operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)
said.
"There were five shells - Israeli tank shells - which struck the
people and killed many of them as they slept. Those people came to
the school because it a designated U.N. shelter," he said.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said militants had fired mortar
bombs from the vicinity of the school and troops fired back in
response. The incident was still being reviewed.
UNRWA said on Tuesday it had found a cache of rockets concealed at
another Gaza school - the third such discovery since the conflict
began. It condemned unnamed groups for putting civilians at risk.
In addition to the 19 dead, some 125 people were wounded at the
Jabalya school, including five in critical condition, Halabi said.
An UNRWA source said the agency had recovered fragments from the
shells.
 Blood splattered floors and mattresses inside classrooms, and some
survivors picked through shattered glass and debris for flesh and
body parts to bury.
Israel has been shelling in Jebalya, where some 120,000 people live,
since Tuesday, in what the chief Israeli military spokesman,
Brigadier-General Motti Almoz, described as a slight broadening of
its campaign against militants in the Hamas Islamist-dominated Gaza
Strip.
Israeli tank fire also struck the main market in Jebalya on
Wednesday, killing at least three people and wounding 40 others, the
Gaza Health Ministry said. Seven members of one family died in an
Israeli attack in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip.
The ministry said 1,270 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have
been killed since Israel began its offensive on July 8 with the
declared aim of halting cross-border rocket fire.
In ground operations launched 10 days later, the army has said its
main mission is to locate and destroy tunnels that militants have
built under the frontier and have used to launch attacks inside
Israel.
On the Israeli side, 53 soldiers and three civilians have been
killed. Public support remains strong for continuing the operation
in the hope of preventing future flareups.
HAMAS DEFIANT
Mohammed Deif, the shadowy leader of Hamas's armed wing, said in a
broadcast message on Tuesday that Palestinians would continue
confronting Israel until its blockade on Gaza - which is supported
by neighboring Egypt - was lifted.
Five rockets were fired from Gaza at Israel on Wednesday, landing
harmlessly in open areas, police said.
Israel has balked at freeing up Gaza's borders under any
de-escalation deal unless Hamas's disarmament is also guaranteed.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to review progress
with his security cabinet later on Wednesday, and a Palestinian
delegation was expected in Cairo for discussions on an elusive
truce. In previous bouts of fighting between Israel and its
neighbors, the United States has often leaned on the Israelis to
stop after incidents that cause high civilian casualties. Washington
appears to have less sway with either side this time.
Egypt said on Tuesday it was revising an unconditional ceasefire
proposal that Israel had originally accepted but Hamas rejected, and
that a new offer would be presented to the Palestinian
representatives.
UNRWA, the main U.N. relief agency in Gaza, said it was at "breaking
point" with more than 200,000 Palestinians having taken shelter in
its schools and buildings following calls by Israel for civilians to
evacuate whole neighborhoods before military operations.
Both U.S. President Barack Obama and the U.N. Security Council have
called for an immediate ceasefire to allow relief to reach Gaza's
1.8 million Palestinians, followed by negotiations on a more durable
end to hostilities.
Efforts led by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry last week failed
to achieve a breakthrough, and the explosion of violence appeared to
dash international hopes of turning a brief lull for the Muslim Eid
al-Fitr festival into a longer-term ceasefire. In a statement on Wednesday, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he was "extremely concerned about the escalating
fighting in and around Gaza" in which civilian infrastructure and
U.N. facilities have come under fire.
"Everything must be done to prevent civilian victims and to uphold
humanitarian law," he said. "I urge both sides to agree to an
immediate ceasefire and to resume negotiations about a long-term
ceasefire on the basis of the Egyptian suggestions."
(Additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem and Alexandra
Hudson in Berlin; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Paul Taylor)
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