Gazans fired from school where 40 were killed, Israel says

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israeli mortar shells killed as many as 40 Palestinians, among them women and children, outside a U.N. school in Gaza on Tuesday where they were taking refuge from 11 days of fierce fighting.

The Israeli military contended that Hamas fighters had fired mortars from the school compound, and U.N. officials called for an independent inquiry into the incident.

But the rising civilian-death toll in crowded Gaza heightened international urgency to end the combat. American and European diplomats said it was highly likely that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, which has said it would not end the operation until it crushed Hamas' capacity to fire rockets into its civilian areas, would travel to Egypt today to discuss a cease-fire.

Meanwhile, Hamas continued to fire off rockets despite the large numbers of Israeli troops on the fourth day of ground operations in Gaza.

Israel has stated that ending the Hamas rocket fire is a primary goal of its campaign.

For the first time, a Katyusha-type rocket slammed into the Israeli town of Gadera, more than 25 miles north of the Gaza border and less than 20 miles south of Tel Aviv. The rocket landed between houses and one baby was injured lightly, the Israeli authorities said.

The location was significant for Israelis, since Gadera is considered part of central Israel. The thousands of rockets fired out of Gaza in recent years have all landed in the south.

With another day of gory news reports being repeatedly flashed around the Arab world, Israel contended that the deaths at the school demonstrated Hamas' callousness to the lives of the Palestinians' own civilians.

The Israeli Defense Force said it was responding to mortar shells from the school compound, in the packed and militant Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, and fired several mortar rounds near the school.

"They shot back to save their own lives," said Ilan Tal, an Israeli military spokesman and a brigadier general in the reserves. Among the dead, the military said in a statement, were "Hamas-terrorist operatives and a mortar-battery cell."

The military identified two Hamas operatives, Imad Abu Asker and Hassan Abu Asker, as having been killed.

A young witness from Jabaliya, Ibrahim Amen, 16, said that he had seen one of the militants, whom he identified as Abu Khaled Abu Asker, in the area of the school right before the attack.

Ibrahim said he saw the militant after he had responded to calls for volunteers to pile sand around the camp "to help protect the resistance fighters." Ibrahim went to pile sand near the school with his brother, Iyad, 20, who was then injured by the Israeli mortar fire.

U.N. officials were unable to immediately determine the accuracy of the Israeli army's statements.

Christopher Gunness, spokesman for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which offers assistance to registered Palestinian refugees and runs the school, said his organization was calling for an independent inquiry.

The night before, the United Nations said, three Palestinian men were killed in another Israeli attack on another U.N. school used for refugees in Gaza.

The death toll in Gaza reached around 640 on Tuesday, according to Palestinian health officials. The Israeli military said two soldiers, including one on Tuesday, have been killed in clashes with Hamas. In addition, three Israeli civilians and a soldier who were killed by rockets fired out of Gaza at southern Israel, before the ground campaign began.

Israeli ground forces continued to fight Hamas operatives in northern Gaza on Tuesday. The Israeli forces were surrounding Gaza City and, residents said, were east of Khan Yunis in the south.

In the Al-Nasir district of Gaza City, families fleeing the fighting in the north poured into a U.N. boys' school. There is no electricity — some three-quarters of Gaza's population of 1.5 million are currently without power, and hundreds of thousands are without running water, international agencies have said.

International-relief agencies warned on Tuesday that inside Gaza, the humanitarian situation was becoming increasingly dire. Speaking to reporters at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital on Tuesday, hours before the Jabaliya strike, John Ging, the chief of operations for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, called the Gaza violence a "horrific tragedy" and a result of "political failure."

"There is no safe haven," Ging said.

Also

Obama speaks: President-elect Obama broke his silence about the Gaza fighting on Tuesday, telling reporters that "the loss of civilian life in Gaza and Israel is a source of deep concern for me."

Obama blamed: In a new audio message Tuesday, al-Qaida's No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahiri accused President-elect Obama of not doing anything to stop Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip. In comments posted on a Web site and obtained by the SITE Monitoring Service, al-Zawahiri described Israel's actions as a "crusade against Islam and Muslims" and called it "Obama's gift to Israel" before he takes office.