An Israeli air strike killed 10 people and wounded about 30 others yesterday in a United Nations-run school in the southern Gaza Strip, a Palestinian official said, as dozens died in Israeli shelling of the enclave and Hamas fired rockets at Israel.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the reported attack, the second to hit a school in less than a week.

Israeli media, on the 27th day of the fighting, reported that most Israeli troops had pulled out of Gaza, and Reuters TV footage showed a column of Israeli tanks and dozens of infantrymen leaving the enclave.

An Israeli military spokesman stopped short of calling the move a withdrawal, but said residents from some evacuated Palestinian neighbourhoods had been told by the army they could return.

“The troops are in the midst of a redeployment to other parts of the border,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner. “Indeed we are releasing troops from the front line but the mission is ongoing. Ground forces are operating. Air forces are operating.”

In the town of Rafah, where the military has been battling militants, a missile from an Israeli aircraft struck the entrance to the school, where Palestinians who had fled their homes were sheltering, witnesses and medics said.

A spokesman for the Gaza health ministry, said10 people were killed and 30 wounded.

Robert Serry, UN Middle East Special Coordinator, said the strike in the immediate vicinity of the school in Rafah sheltering 3,000 displaced persons caused multiple deaths and injuries.

A Palestinian carries a wounded boy. Photos: Reuters

“It is simply intolerable that another school has come under fire while designated to provide shelter for civilians fleeing the hostilities,” he said.

Last Wednesday, at least 15 Palestinians who sought refuge in a UN-run school in Jabalya refugee camp were killed during fighting, and the UN said it appeared that Israeli artillery had hit the building. The Israeli military said gunmen had fired mortar bombs from near the school and it shot back in response.

It is simply intolerable that another school has come under fire while designated to provide shelter for civilians fleeing the hostilities

Earlier yesterday, Israeli shelling killed at least 30 people in Gaza, a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to keep up pressure on Hamas even after the army completes its core mission of destroying a tunnel network that extends into Israel.

Netanyahu says Gaza’s dominant Hamas faction bears ultimate responsibility for civilian casualties, accusing gunmen and rocket-launching squads of using residents in densely populated areas as “human shields”.

In Rafah, Fatah faction leader Ashraf Goma said Israeli forces were bombarding the town from air, ground and sea and locals were unable to deal with the wounded and the dead.

A wounded Palestinian boy calls for help as people try to rescue him from under the rubble of a house in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday. Photo: Reuters

“Bodies of the wounded are bleeding in the streets and other corpses are laid on the road with no one able to recover them.

“I saw a man on a donkey cart bringing seven bodies into the hospital. Bodies are being kept in ice-cream refrigerators, in flower and vegetable coolers,” Goma said.

The Israeli army said that more than 55 rockets had been fired from Gaza at Israel yesterday.

Israeli troops had discovered a cache of 150 mortar bombs in the southern Gaza Strip. They had clashed with Palestinian fighters who had emerged from a tunnel and with others preparing to launch an anti-tank missile from a house in the area, a military statement said.

In Cairo, efforts to find a new truce were due to resume yesterday. A delegation from Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad arrived in the Egyptian capital, but a quick breakthrough seemed unlikely in the absence of Israeli representatives.

After accusing Hamas of breaching a US- and UN-brokered ceasefire on Friday, Israel said it would not send envoys as scheduled.

In Gaza, Israel intensified attacks in the area of Rafah along the border with Egypt, where 23-year-old officer Hadar Goldin was feared captured there on Friday shortly after what was to have been a 72-hour truce began.

The military later said Goldin, who was dragged by militants into a tunnel after two of his comrades were killed by a suicide bomber, had also died in action. Hamas accused Israel of misleading the world by claiming a soldier had been kidnapped before later announcing his death.

Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said Goldin was a relative of his. “He and other soldiers who fell embarked on the campaign to restore quiet and security to Israel.”

More than 30 tunnels and dozens of access shafts have been unearthed and were being blown up.

Israel expected to complete its mission to eliminate tunnels within the next 24 hours. The talks in Cairo, without Israeli participation, were unlikely to produce any breakthrough, as Israel and Hamas’ positions remain far apart.

Israel wants Gaza demilitarised under any long-term arrangement. Hamas, sworn to Israel’s destruction, demands a lifting of Israeli blockades that have choked Gaza’s economy.