UN: Israel bombed building used for evacuated Palestinians (Roundup)

Jan 9, 2009, 12:00 GMT

Jerusalem - A United Nations report released Friday said that earlier this week Israeli forces repeatedly shelled a home to which the UN had evacuated about 110 Palestinians in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City, killing around 30 people.

The Israeli military said it had no immediate comment.

'We received eyewitness accounts from several survivors,' said Allegrea Pacheco, the deputy head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The UN report, based on the testimonies, said that Israeli ground troops evacuated the Palestinians into a single-residence home on Sunday and warned them 'to stay indoors.'

About half of the Palestinians were children.

Israeli forces then 'shelled the home repeatedly' the next morning, the UN official said.

'It took several days until ambulances could reach the area,' said Pacheco, explaining that the wounded and dead were stuck together in the same cramped rubble the entire time.

The International Red Cross had said that it was unable until Wednesday to access the area, where it found severely weakened people, including children, and corpses. It condemned Israel for violating international law by denying medical teams access to the area.

The UN said at least 257 of the over 781 Palestinians killed in Operation Cast Lead, were children. Since Israel began its ground operation on January 3 'the number of children fatalities has increased by 250 percent.'

'There is no safe place in Gaza,' said Pacheco, adding that civilians needed to be protected in times of war.

OCHA said the ongoing Israeli offensive in Gaza, now in its 14th day, has 'resulted in the largest number of forcibly displaced Palestinians since 1967.'