For a few hours, Gazans could breathe more easily

The three-hour humanitarian cease-fire provided no small relief to Gazans yesterday. "The feeling we got for those few hours," said Abu Said of the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City, "is that we can breathe again. The explosions stopped, there wasn't any shelling or exchanges of gunfire."

The flow of cars on the streets resumed, and the neighborhoods were filled with people for the first time since the Israeli operation began. Abu Said allowed himself to visit his office in the center of Gaza City. "Everything was destroyed, praise God," he joked.

His friend Karim added: "Finally, we saw children, women and passersby going shopping. The problem is there is a serious food shortage. There are no dairy products or baby formula. If you go to the supermarket, you'll see a lot of empty shelves."

"There is no fresh meat, but people adapt. They buy ful (fava beans), rice, [other] beans - basic products. Some say this three-hour cease-fire was intended to prepare us for a long war," he said.

The war returned in the evening. Electricity went out, and the water supply was disrupted. An artillery shell struck the Abed Rabbo home in the northeast Strip, killing three girls, aged 2, 4 and 6. Four armed militants were killed in Beit Lahia and two others in al-Bureij refugee camp.

"We've gone back to listening to radio on batteries, because there's no electricity," Karim said.

Yesterday the World Bank warned of severe problems in water supply and sewage functioning, which has caused significant flooding in the village of Beit Lahia and is liable to spread disease.

An initial Israel Defense Forces investigation indicates a rocket was indeed fired from the UNRWA school Tuesday, as the army had initially claimed.

The ensuing mortar strike was fired by a paratroopers unit after a rocket identification system spotted the launch site in the schoolyard. The initial IDF investigation indicates the mortar missed its target by 30 meters - roughly the distance between the schoolyard and the school itself, in which Palestinian civilians had taken refuge.

Of those killed in the strike, two have been identified as members of Hamas' armed wing involved with rocket launching. Israeli officials said Hamas is trying to downplay the presence of militants so as to use the strike for its own public relations purposes.

The United Nations yesterday denied the IDF claim. Christopher Gunness of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said the organization is 99.9 percent certain there were no militants or military activity in its school. "That does not necessarily contradict Israel's claim that the militants were operating close by," Gunness said.

Gunness put the death toll of the shelling at 40, and added that the agency wants an impartial investigation of witnesses, Israeli military photographs or any other evidence.

The IDF on Tuesday released video footage from 2007 showing Palestinian militants firing from the school compound and carrying a rocket launcher with them as they fled the scene.

Gunness said the 2007 video bears no connection to Tuesday's military strike on the school.

The IDF bombed the UNRWA school, Fakhura, on Tuesday after militants fired mortars at troops from inside the school, according to the IDF Spokesman's Office. The bodies of militants were found inside, it added.

Three shells hit the girls elementary school, which is located near the Jabalya refugee camp, according to Gunness.

Fakhura, like many other UNRWA schools, was serving as a refuge for people who had been forced to flee their homes.