The death toll in Gaza has climbed at a shocking rate, following the deadliest day in the conflict so far.
"Nothing is more shameful than attacking sleeping children"
Just before dawn, a school was bombed in the Jabaliya refugee camp, killing at least 16 of the more than 3,000 displaced people who were using it as a haven. Many of the dead were women and children.
Frightened survivors revealed that the school was hit by a barrage of eight shells that struck over a period of three to 15 minutes, meaning that many who escaped the initial blast were only to be injured in a following.
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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack on a UN school in Gaza that killed at least 16 children, saying: "Nothing is more shameful than attacking sleeping children. I condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms."
The furious UN Secretary-General added that "all available evidence points to Israeli artillery as the cause" of the pre-dawn attack, and he pointedly noted that Israeli military authorities had received the coordinates of the school from the United Nations 17 times.
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Pierre Krahenbuhl, the commissioner-general of UNWRA was even more forthright.
He said: "Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced.
"We have analysed fragments, examined craters and other damage.
"Our initial assessment is that it was Israeli artillery that hit our school, in which 3,300 people had sought refuge."
At UN headquarters in New York, Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson expressed "shock and dismay" at the attack, which injured more than 100. He said more than 3,000 civilians had sought shelter at the elementary girls' school in the Jebaliya refugee camp.
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The school was not the only point of attack; the early evening brought even greater carnage when a missile and several shells struck the crowded Shujaiya market, as people queued up to buy fuel and ice.
According to the Gaza health ministry, 106 people lost their lives. The total from three weeks of fighting now exceeds 1,300.
Bernadette Meehan, the US National Security Council spokesman, said: "We are extremely concerned that thousands of internally displaced Palestinians who have been called on by the Israeli military to evacuate their homes are not safe in UN-designated shelters in Gaza.**
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"We also condemn those responsible for hiding weapons in United Nations facilities in Gaza."