By Saud Abu Ramadan, Xinhua,
Gaza : Israel pressed on with its airstrikes on the Gaza Strip on Tuesday by shelling houses and a school run by the United Nations, killing 82 Palestinians, the majority women and children, in the eleventh day of violence.
An Israeli air and ground strike on al-Fakhoura school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Jabalia refugee camp on Tuesday evening killed 46 people and wounded 150 others, medics said.
The school is located in the center of Jabalia refugee camp, sheltering 200,000 refugees displaced by the ongoing Israeli offensive. According to UN officials, the school was directly targeted by the Israeli army.
Adnan Abu Hasna, UNRWA spokesman in Gaza, condemned the attack on the school, saying that “we have several times noted to the Israeli sides to avoid targeting our schools that shelter civilians.”
“In spite of rising the blue flag of UNRWA on our schools, the Israeli army has been targeting those schools by missiles and tanks shells,” said Abu Hasna, adding “four of our schools were hit. The latest was al-Fakhoura school.”
Israel’s military said its shelling on the school in northern Gaza Strip was in response to mortar fire from within the school.
Meanwhile, an official statement issued by the Palestinian Health Ministry said that 42 civilians were killed in the tanks shelling of al-Fakhoura school in northern Gaza Strip.
Ibrahim Abu Tahoun, an observer based in Gaza City, said “In less than 24 hours, some 82 people were killed and 150 wounded in a series of massacres committed by the Israeli army in airstrikes on central and northern Gaza Strip.”
Mo’aweya Hassanein, chief of emergency and ambulance services in the Palestinian Health Ministry, told reporters up to Tuesday 670 people have been killed and around 3,000 others wounded since the launch of the Israeli offensive on Dec. 27.
Hundreds of families went to the school run by the UNRWA to take shelter after their houses were either destroyed or threatened to be destroyed by the Israeli army warplanes.
The UNRWA spokesman in Gaza said the UN group, which offers humanitarian aid to two thirds of the Gaza population, decided to open 10 of its schools in the Gaza Strip as shelters.
Eyewitnesses near the school said two tank shells landed into the schoolyard, adding that dozens were killed and injured, and were all taken to three major hospitals.
“Dozens of people, who were inside the school, turned into pieces and most of them were women and children,” said Hassan, a Palestinian paramedic, who asked not to give his second name.
Abu Tahoun, the Palestinian observer, expected that “the massacre in Jabalia today reminds us of the massacre committed on the Lebanese village of Qana, when so many civilians were killed by Israeli shelling in 1996.”
He said Qana massacre obliged Israel to end its offensive on Lebanon after it was embarrassed by the world public opinion, and “I hope that this massacre would embarrass Israel again and stop this war soon.”
The Israeli army earlier targeted another school in the beach refugee camp, killing three people of the al-Dayah family. Thirteen others of the family were killed in another strike in Gaza City.
Tuesday’s predawn witnessed a series of airstrikes and shelling, mainly on central Gaza Strip, where a father and two of his children were killed in al-Bureij refugee camp.
Also 10 more Palestinians, including two Islamic Jihad militants were killed in separate airstrikes and tanks shelling on the Gaza Strip early on Tuesday morning.