The Israeli military said it had resumed its attacks on the Gaza Strip on Monday, ending a self-declared unilateral ceasefire that had been in effect for much of the day.



Israel had declared a seven-hour “humanitarian window” in Gaza amid international outrage at the third deadly attack on a UN school sheltering displaced Palestinians and mounting pressure for the bloodshed to end.

The unilateral ceasefire was the eighth temporary pause in fighting, nearly all of which have broken down amid mutual accusations of violations.

It slowed violence, but shortly after it had started two Israeli missiles hit a house in the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza, killing an eight-year-old girl and wounding 29, medics said. At least 20 Gazans were killed on Monday, Palestinian officials said, including two in an Israeli airstrike next to a desalination plant.

A separate Israeli strike killed Daniel Mansour, a commander in the Islamic Jihad group, a close ally of Gaza’s militant Palestinian Hamas rulers, the group said.

The British Foreign Office said it was “urgently investigating” claims that a British aid worker had been killed in the Gaza town of Rafah.

Jerusalem was the scene of what police said were two suspected terrorist attacks, amid clashes between Palestinian youths protesting over the Gaza conflict and Israeli security forces.

A bus was rammed by an industrial digger in an ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood close to the main thoroughfare through the city. The driver, reported to be a Palestinian from East Jerusalem, was shot dead by police who unleashed repeated rounds of gunfire.



A 25-year-old Israeli man died after being hit by the vehicle before it ploughed into the bus, overturning it. Five people were lightly injured.

Less than three hours later, an Israeli soldier was shot in the stomach in a tunnel near the main campus of Hebrew university. “Multiple shots were fired. One man was hit in the stomach and rushed to the hospital in serious condition,” said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. Police were searching for the assailant.

Schools that have been hit in Gaza. Graphic: Amanda Shendruk/Guardian

Police detained 12 Palestinians overnight who it said were involved in “rioting” near the Old City. Protests in East Jerusalem and the West Bank over the war in Gaza in recent weeks have led to at least 10 Palestinians being killed by Israeli security forces.

The Israeli military reported that 53 rockets had been fired at Israel on Monday. There were no reports of injuries.

The Israeli ceasefire in Gaza had exempted the area around the southern town of Rafah, where the UN school was struck on Sunday, and fighting continued there. Troops were working on destroying a cross-border tunnel in the area.



Israeli army spokesman Peter Lerner said the Israel Defence Forces were close to completing their mission to destroy the network of tunnels leading into Israel. “We’ve caused substantial damage to this network to an extent where we’ve basically taken this huge threat and made it minimal,” he said.

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said Israel had “no intention of attacking the residents of Gaza” during a visit to the military’s southern command headquarters, according to a statement released by the government press office.

Netanyahu said the Gaza campaign was continuing. “What is about to conclude is the IDF action to deal with the tunnels but this operation will end only when quiet and security are restored to the citizens of Israel for a lengthy period,” he said.



“We struck a very severe blow at Hamas and the other terrorist organisations. We have no intention of attacking the residents of Gaza. In practice, it is Hamas that is attacking them and denying them humanitarian aid. I think that the international community needs to strongly condemn Hamas and also demand, just as we are demanding, that the rehabilitation of Gaza be linked to its demilitarisation.”

Hamas said it did not trust Israel’s motives for declaring Monday’s unilateral ceasefire. “The calm Israel declared is unilateral and aims to divert attention away from the Israeli massacres. We do not trust such a calm and we urge our people to exercise caution,” said spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.

The attack on a UN school, killing at least 10 people and injuring dozens more, and coming just four days after a similar attack in Gaza City caused international shock and anger, was denounced as a “moral outrage and a criminal act” by UN chief Ban Ki-moon.

It was “yet another gross violation of international humanitarian law, which clearly requires protection by both parties of Palestinian civilians, UN staff and UN premises, among other civilian facilities.” Ban called for a swift investigation, saying “those responsible [must be] held accountable. It is a moral outrage and a criminal act.”

The Israel Defence Forces had been “repeatedly informed of the location of these sites,” said Ban.

A hospital near the site of Sunday’s attack, in the southern town of Rafah, was overwhelmed with the dead and injured. Children’s bodies were stored in an ice-cream freezer as the morgue ran out of space.

The Israeli military was investigating the incident, said a spokesman, but preliminary inquiries had shown that its forces were “targeting a number of terrorists on a motorbike near the school, and we did identify a successful hit on a motorbike. We do not target schools. We certainly do not target civilians. We are still reviewing the incident.”

The IDF began withdrawing forces from Gaza on Sunday in what the military described as a “new phase” in the 28-day conflict. “The troops are in the midst of a redeployment to other parts of the border,” said Lerner. “Indeed we are releasing troops from the front line but the mission is ongoing. Ground forces are operating. Air forces are operating.”

Israeli analysts said that Israel was effecting a unilateral winding down of the military operation rather than engage in truce negotiations with Hamas. But the international community is likely to be alarmed at Israel bypassing negotiations. Political leaders and a senior diplomats have repeatedly stressed that the two sides must address and resolve underlying issues that lead to the current conflict to break the cycle of violence.

Efforts to forge a truce resumed in Cairo on Sunday, with Middle East envoy Tony Blair and US special envoy Frank Lowenstein flying in, along with a Palestinian delegation which included representative of the main militant groups in Gaza, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. However Israel declined to send a team to join the talks, in an indication it wants to proceed on its own terms, diminishing prospects for an early breakthrough.

Among demands tabled by the Palestinians were an end to the blockade of Gaza, extending the permitted fishing zone at sea and the removal of the no-go buffer zone inside the border, rehabilitation of Gaza and emergency aid, and a release of prisoners.

As diplomats prepared for talks in Cairo, the funeral took place of Hadar Goldin, a 23-year-old soldier who Israel said had been captured by Hamas during an attack near Rafah on Friday. Hamas denied it was holding the soldier. Israel retaliated for the attack – in which two other soldiers were killed – with massive bombardment of the area.

In a statement issued late on Saturday night, the IDF said Goldin had been killed in battle, bringing the number of soldiers killed to 64. It also confirmed that he was related to defence minister Moshe Ya’alon.

Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas’s spokesman in Gaza, accused Israel of “tricking” the world by saying that the soldier had been abducted. “Israel tricked and deceived the world when it claimed Friday that a soldier had been abducted and then admitted that he had actually been killed in battle in Rafah. It did this only in order to breach the 72-hour cease-fire agreed upon with the UN and the US, in order to commit massacre in Rafah,” he told reporters.

Praising the soldier as a “great hero”, Netanyahu told his parents: “I hope that you will find consolation in the fact that he fell to uphold the people of Israel in the struggle for our independence.”

The UN warned of a rapidly unfolding health disaster in Gaza, with hospital and other medical services, overwhelmed with injured people, on the verge of collapse. A third of hospitals, 14 primary healthcare clinics and 29 ambulances had been damaged in the fighting; at least five medical staff had been killed on duty; and more than 40% of medical staff were unable to get to places of work, it said.

Critical supplies of medicines and other supplies were almost depleted, and damage and destruction of power supplies had left hospitals dependent on unreliable back-up generators.

The Palestinian death toll surpassed 1,800, 80% of whom are civilians according to UN estimates. About 460,000 people in Gaza have been displaced since the start of the conflict. Three civilians in Israel have been killed.

Many Gazans were “now living in overcrowded conditions in schools, with relatives or in makeshift shelters. This, coupled with lack of inadequate water and sanitation, poses serious risks of outbreak of waterborne and communicable diseases,” the UN said.