Israel Strike Hits U.N. Complex in Gaza Strip NYTIMES
Israeli forces shelled areas deep inside Gaza City on Thursday, hitting the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and injuring at least three people in the compound, according to witnesses and United Nations officials.
A spokesman for the agency, Christopher Gunness, said that hundreds of Palestinians were sheltering in the compound at the time of the shelling and that there were five fully laden fuel vehicles at the site. He said two buildings were ablaze.
The United Nations compound was struck as Israeli ground forces pushed further into Gaza City and intensified its shelling of both outlying neighborhoods and central districts, sending thousands of panicked residents fleeing from their homes, witnesses said. Among other buildings hit in the center of Gaza City, the witnesses said, was one occupied by several media organizations, and at least two television cameramen were hospitalized.
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, expressed “strong protest and outrage” to Israel over the shelling of the United Nations compound. Mr. Ban, who was in Israel Thursday to promote a cease-fire, said that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had told him the strike on the compound was a “grave mistake.”
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Mr. Gunness said that the Israelis had been provided with the GPS coordinates of all United Nations facilities in Gaza.
Earlier in Israel’s 20-day-old campaign against Hamas, Israeli mortar shells landed outside a United Nations school compound in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, killing 40 Palestinians, according to United Nations and hospital officials.
In that attack, the Israeli military said it was responding to mortars fired by Hamas militants from a yard next to the school compound, and that one of the shells it fired back fell off the mark.
As the fighting in Gaza entered its 20th day, the Israeli military would not give precise details of its latest ground operations in Gaza City, b
ut a spokesman said that “fierce fighting” was under way “relatively deep inside Gaza.”
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