Cease-fire calls rise after school bombing

UPDATED:

KIBBUTZ KFAR AZZA, Israel | Israel faced mounting pressure Tuesday for an immediate cease-fire after its army shelled a U.N.-run school in Gaza that sheltered Palestinian families fleeing a ground offensive against the territory’s Hamas rulers.

Reports of at least 40 civilian deaths stoked memories of similar strikes on a civilian target during Israel’s 2006 war in southern Lebanon, which turned international opinion decisively against Israel’s effort to crush another Islamist enemy - Hezbollah.

An Israeli army spokesman said Tuesday that a preliminary inquiry indicated the school in northern Gaza was being used by Hamas militants to fire mortars at Israeli troops. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing army rules.

“I doubt it will cause us to stop,” said Yossi Alpher, a former official in the Mossad spy agency and former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.

“But it will definitely figure into the calculations of where we take the war,” said Mr. Alpher, now co-editor of the Israeli-Palestinian journal Bitterlemons.org.

Early Wednesday, Israel announced it would set up a humanitarian corridor to ship supplies to Gaza.

Israel would halt attacks in predetermined areas where people could pick up supplies, to “prevent a humanitarian crisis,” said a statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Israel previously denied that Gaza faced a humanitarian crisis.

After Tuesday’s attack on the school, a Western diplomat said people are “genuinely enraged” with Israel.

“Until now, Israel’s been given a considerable rope in the operation. That’s gotten much shorter,” said the diplomat, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the subject.

The attack prompted President-elect Barack Obama to speak publicly for the first time on the war.

“The loss of civilian life in Gaza and Israel is a source of deep concern for me,” Mr. Obama said in Washington.

Tuesday’s attack came on the 11th day of the war as Israel’s ground troops advanced into Gaza’s densely packed refugee camps and cities, where Hamas operatives typically intermingle with civilians.

The blue flag of the United Nations flew over the Asma school, where the walls of the toilets were covered in blood, according to a dispatch from the scene by Agence France-Presse.

Story Continues →