Hamas terrorists fired mortars at Israeli troops from inside a packed United Nations school yesterday – triggering an Israeli response that killed at least 30 civilians, including several children, authorities said.
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The incident was the bloodiest of the 11-day Gaza offensive and came amid intensified demands by the United States and other nations for an “immediate cease-fire.”
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced a truce proposal late yesterday,
It calls for an immediate end to combat to allow humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
Israel has already agreed to set up a “humanitarian corridor” allowing shipments of supplies to Gaza. The Israeli Ynet Web site had said Hamas was seizing humanitarian aid, including medicine, at the Gaza borders.
Mubarak said the plan also calls for an urgent meeting between Israel and the militant Palestinian group to discuss resolving the conflict.
Israeli UN envoy Gabriela Shalev said her nation will take the proposal “very, very seriously.”
Israel said the high death toll at the UN school was caused by booby traps that had been set by terrorists inside the facility, which was being used a shelter by Palestinians.
“Hamas and its senior commanders are turning their citizens into bulletproof vests for their personal use,” an Israeli army spokesman said.
Palestinian witnesses in Jebaliya said the incident began after a group of terrorists fired mortars from a street near the UN-run al-Fakhora girls school and fled into a crowd of people.
Israel then opened fire with its own artillery and struck the school with mortar shells.
The Israeli army said that fighters fired “from within the school,” where they were barricaded, and troops “responded with mortars at the source of fire.”
“Hamas cynically uses civilians as human shields,” the military said in a statement.
It added that secondary explosions from the terrorists’ booby traps killed civilians who had fled to the school for safety.
Among the dead were Imad Abu Askar and Hasan Abu Askar – identified by Israel as heads of the Hamas mortar teams in Gaza.
UN officials said 55 people were injured in the explosions. Accounts of the number of dead ranged from 30 to 42.
Gruesome hospital footage was aired by Hamas’ Al Aqsa TV.
“I saw women and men – parents – slapping their faces in grief, screaming, some of them collapsed to the floor. They knew their children were dead,” said Majed Hamdan, an Associated Press photographer. “In the morgue, most of the killed appeared to be children. In the hospital, there wasn’t enough space for the wounded.”
The Israeli military released a video taken by a drone aircraft that showed terrorists launching mortars from the Jebaliya school last year. Last week, Israel posted a video on YouTube showing mortars being fired from another UN school, in Beit Hanoun, in October 2007.
In other developments:
* Prior to announcing the cease-fire proposal, Sarkozy conferred in Damascus, where he hoped Syrian dictator Bashar Assad would exert pressure on Hamas to stop its rocket attacks on southern Israel.
* Another 30 Hamas rockets were fired yesterday, including a long-range Grad missile that reached the Israeli town of Gedera, less than 20 miles from Tel Aviv. A 3-month-old baby was wounded by shards of glass.
* President-elect Barack Obama broke his silence on the Mideast, saying, “The loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern for me.
“After Jan. 20, I’m going to have plenty to say about the issue.”
* Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez expelled the Israeli ambassador and called the Gaza offensive a “Holocaust.” With Post Wire Services