UNRWA: Army admitted bombed school did not harbor militants

The United Nations is claiming Israeli military officers have admitted the tank firing on the UNRWA school in Gaza, in which dozens of Palestinians were killed, was an error.

In addition, UNRWA yesterday announced it will cease activities in the Strip due to the death of an UNRWA staffer in an IDF shelling during yesterday morning's humanitarian hiatus.

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness told Haaretz yesterday that the army had conceded wrongdoing. "In briefings senior [Israel Defense Forces] officers conducted for foreign diplomats, they admitted the shelling to which IDF forces in Jabalya were responding did not originate from the school," Gunness said. "The IDF admitted in that briefing that the attack on the UN site was unintentional."

He noted that all the footage released by the IDF of militants firing from inside the school was from 2007 and not from the incident itself. "There are no up-to-date photos," Gunness said. "In 2007, we abandoned the site and only then did the militants take it over."

UNRWA is now demanding an objective investigation into whether the school shelling constituted a violation of international humanitarian law.

The UN reported yesterday that a Palestinian working for UNRWA was killed by an IDF tank shell while driving a well-marked aid truck at the Erez border crossing and the incident took place during the humanitarian hiatus in fighting slated to allow Gaza residents to acquire supplies..