Two boys killed as shells hit UN school

A third UN school is hit by Israeli attacks, prompting calls for a war crimes investigation into the incident as white phosphorous is suspected.

The al Bana family flee the Jabalya area of Gaza City after their house was destroyed.

GAZA // Another deadly day, another call by the United Nations for a war crimes investigation into Israeli actions in Gaza. This time, a UN Relief and Works Agency school in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza was shelled early yesterday. Witnesses said the school, housing 1,800 people who had fled their homes to escape heavy fighting, was first struck by what appeared to be white phosphorous shells. Two boys, ages five and seven, were killed when a tank shell slammed into the third floor of the school. The boys' mother, who lost both her legs in the attack, remained in critical condition as of last night.

"Gaza is unique in the annals of contemporary suffering in that it is a conflict with a fence around it," said Christopher Gunness, an UNRWA spokesman. "There is nowhere safe to flee." Mr Gunness said the UN would call for a war crimes investigation into the incident. The school was the third UNRWA school to have been shelled, resulting in the loss of nearly 50 lives, in Israel's 22-day long offensive on the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army has said it will look into all incidents involving UN schools. About 45,000 people have sought refuge in UNRWA schools in the past three weeks. There is no accurate figure for the total number of Gazans displaced because of the fighting because most have sought shelter with relatives.

On Thursday, the UN's headquarters in Gaza City was also shelled, prompting protests from Ban Ki-moon, the UN's secretary general, who was in Lebanon yesterday for talks with leaders there in his diplomatic push through the region to secure a ceasefire. Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, yesterday said Israel was "very close" to achieving its military objectives in the Gaza Strip.The military said it hit 70 targets in the Gaza Strip yesterday, notably on the border with Egypt. Nine Israeli soldiers were wounded, four in what the army said might have been a "friendly fire" incident. In all, 10 Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed since Israel started its offensive on Gaza on Dec 27.

More than 1,150 Palestinians have been killed in that time and 5,100 wounded, many of them civilians. Yesterday, at least a dozen Palestinians were killed. In the Jabalya neighbourhood of Gaza City, streets were empty of cars during the daily lull in fighting that Israel on Friday extended to four hours, but several groups of people were moving from the area towards the city centre. "The Israelis threatened to destroy the house next to ours," said Jamil Abdul Nabi, 39, at the head of one group, all relatives carrying blankets and water bottles. "So we took all the children and left."

Mr Abdul Nabi, who lost a son, 17, and two nephews, five and six, in a missile strike in the first week of the Israeli offensive, said his three daughters had brought their families from near the Israeli border at the beginning of the offensive for safety. Now the family of 40 was on the move again, to a son's house in the centre. Jabalya has seen some of the fiercest confrontations between Palestinian fighters and Israeli troops, and so many have fled the area that residents say Jabalya has more drones than people, in reference to the numerous unmanned Israeli aircraft that hover constantly overhead. Not long after the Abdul Nabi family had passed, another group of relatives lugging blankets and water came down the same street. Ashraf al Bana, carrying his young son in his arms, said the family had already fled from Beit Lahiya, early in the offensive, to Jabalya. Their house in Beit Lahiya has been destroyed now, Mr al Bana said, and yesterday morning, the house in Jabalya where they had sought refuge was set ablaze by what he said was white phosphorous embers. "They looked like burning pieces of leather coming down from the sky and smelled like burning rubber," Mr al Bana said. The embers landed on his roof and the house caught fire. Ten relatives received burns and had to be taken to a hospital. About 30 people were now on the move, trying to find a school with space to take them in. The Shadia Abu Ghazalah School just up the road had turned them away. The classrooms there were already teeming with refugees. Mr al Bana said he had lost seven cousins in the fighting so far. "They all had families. And with one shell, their families now have no fathers," Mr al Bana said. The 45-year-old vegetable farmer said he had also lost more than US$17,000 (Dh62,450), during the Israeli offensive because his greenhouses had been destroyed in the shelling. He had little faith that Israel would end its offensive. "They are liars. Right now there is supposed to be a humanitarian ceasefire. But they are still bombing. Why?" [e-mail] Omar Karmi reported from Jerusalem. Safwat Kahlout is in Gaza City