UNITED NATIONS (AP) – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack on a U.N. school in Gaza that killed at least 16 people early Wednesday as “outrageous” and “unjustifiable,” and demanded an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas.
“Nothing is more shameful than attacking sleeping children,” Ban said on his arrival in San Jose, Costa Rica. “I condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms.”
Ban said “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, including on Tuesday night.
At U.N. 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.
Israeli’s military said it fired back after soldiers were targeted by mortar rounds launched from the vicinity of the school.