Israeli shelling kills 42 at UN school, medics say

Israeli shelling killed more than 40 Palestinians yesterday at a UN school where civilians had taken shelter, medical officials said, in carnage likely to boost international pressure on Israel to halt a Gaza offensive.

An army spokesman said troops fired mortars at the premises after gunmen mortared their positions from inside al-Fakhora school in Jabalya refugee camp. He gave no casualty figure.

People cut down by shrapnel lay in pools of blood in the street. Witnesses said two shells exploded outside the school, killing at least 42 civilians and wounding dozens among people who had taken refuge there and residents of nearby buildings.

It took the Palestinian death toll in 11 days of violence to over 600 and prompted US President-elect Barack Obama to break his silence on the offensive, to say the loss of life among civilians was "a source of deep concern" for him.

A fourth day of a ground assault, launched after a week of air strikes, still failed to end Hamas rocket salvoes, which again caused damage and some injury in southern Israel.

A senior UN official in Gaza said 350 people had been sheltering at the Fakhora school and the United Nations regularly gave the Israeli army exact geographical coordinates of its facilities to try to keep them safe from attack.

There were conflicting reports that 30 were killed and not more than 40 as medics stated but casualties were still being assessed.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, asked by reporters about the deaths, said she was "not familiar" with the incident.

In a separate attack earlier in the day, three Palestinians were killed in an air strike on another school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

The deaths in Gaza, home to 1.5 million people, raised to 77 the number of Palestinian civilians killed yesterday alone, according to medical officials.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States "would like an immediate ceasefire" but one that is "durable, sustainable and not time-limited" - comments that stopped short of a formal demand for a truce now.

Al Qaeda urges attacks on Israel

Al Qaeda's second-in-command, in an internet message, called on Muslims yesterday to strike Western and Israeli targets around the world over Israel's raids on the Gaza Strip. "Hit the interests of the Zionists and crusaders wherever and in whichever way you can," Ayman al-Zawahri said in an audio tape posted on Islamist websites.