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NEW YORK - The United Nations school in Gaza at which dozens of people died from Israeli shelling, is the fourth UN facility to be targeted by the military.
More than 15,000 Palestinians had sought refuge in the UN's 23 Gaza schools because their homes were destroyed or to flee the Israeli-Hamas fighting, Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon said.
Israeli bombardments fell around three schools and a health centre run by the UN for Palestinian refugees.
"These attacks by Israeli military forces which endanger UN facilities acting as places of refuge are totally unacceptable and should not be repeated," Ban told the Security Council.
"Equally unacceptable are any actions by Hamas militants which endanger the Palestinian civilian population."
UN officials demanded an investigation of the shelling.
Ban said the Palestinians were trapped in the Gaza Strip and he was "deeply dismayed" at attacks on the schools and health centre despite the Israeli military being provided with GPS co-ordinates for all UN facilities.
The Al-Fakhoura school, flying a blue and white UN flag, was one of 23 improvised shelters set up by the UN Relief and Works Agency to accommodate families who had fled their homes.
John Ging, head of Gaza operations for the agency, confirmed that at least 30 people died and 55 were injured, five critically, when three artillery tank shells landed at the perimeter of the school. He said the "indications are that these strikes originated from Israeli weapons".
Most of the casualties in the attack in the northern Gaza town of Jebaliya, where some 350 people had taken refuge, were outside the school premises though there were some inside as well, Ging said. Other officials in Gaza said 34 to 36 people died.
The Israeli Army said an initial investigation found two Hamas militants were among the dead and "mortar shells were fired from within the school at IDF soldiers. The force responded with mortars at the source of fire. The Hamas cynically uses civilians as human shields."
The military said it received intelligence that the dead included Hamas operatives, among them members of a rocket-launching squad. It identified two of them as Imad Abu Askar and Hassan Abu Askar.
Two residents who spoke to an AP reporter by phone said the two brothers were known to be low-level Hamas militants. They said a group of militants - one of them said four - were firing mortar shells from near the school. An Israeli shell targeted the men, but missed and they fled, the witnesses said. Then a further three shells landed nearby, exploding among civilians, they said.
The three Israeli mortar shells that crashed down on the perimeter of the school struck at midafternoon local time, when many people in the densely populated camp were outside getting some fresh air, thinking an area around a school was safe.
Images recorded by a cameraman from AP Television News showed crowds fleeing the scene, pavements smeared with blood and battered bodies being carried off by medics and bystanders. A youth who limped away was helped along by several others. Sandals lay scattered on the pavement by a pock-marked wall.
With the emergency room of northern Gaza's Kamal Adwan hospital packed to overflowing, Fares Ghanem, a medical official, declared: "I saw a lot of women and children wheeled in. A lot of the wounded were missing limbs and a lot of the dead were in pieces."
Ging told reporters at UN headquarters via video link from Gaza that another artillery shell landed inside a boys' school in Jebaliya.
"Thankfully the school was empty at the time, so we have no injuries to report on that," he said.
Ging said that on Tuesday, a school in Gaza City where 400 people had sought refuge was hit by a missile strike which killed three young men. He said 10 people were also injured at a UN health centre in Boureij camp.
"Those who were in the school were all families seeking refuge. We want the facts established in each and every one of the instances where there has been loss of life ... innocent people of Gaza are entitled to accountability.
"There's nowhere safe," he said. "There has to be a stop. The Palestinians have to stop firing the rockets. The Israelis have to stop with the disproportionate and inappropriate use of force in the densely populated urban areas."
- INDEPENDENT, AP
