The Washington Post reports that at least 16 Palestinians were killed in an explosion at a U.N. operated elementary school in Gaza. It is not clear if the building was struck by Israeli shells or Hamas rockets--or that there was some other cause of the explosion.
Witnesses, still shaking from the experience, said the shelter was filled with families who had fled their homes to escape more than two weeks of heavy shelling in the northern Gaza Strip.
As fighting raged around them Thursday morning, a series of explosions first struck the courtyard and then the school, which is run by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA.
The article also states:
If the Israelis turn out to have fired the deadly salvo on the school in Gaza, international condemnation is likely to be heaped on the Jewish state, already under pressure from the Obama administration to end its 17-day offensive against Hamas, the militant Islamist movement that controls Gaza.
If it turns out Hamas is responsible for killing its own people with errant rocket or mortar fire, as Israel initially suggested Thursday, then the group — already branded a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union — could find itself even more isolated.
You might be wondering where I got the idea that Hamas may have been hiding munitions at the school. Well, in just the past week, Hamas rockets have been found in two other UNRWA operated schools. (See
here and
here). "Once is happenstance. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is an enemy action." The UNRWA and Hamas have conspired to (i) hide weapons from Israel and/or (ii) trick Israel into targeting a school and killing civilians.
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