Israel Update

updated 59 minutes ago

U.N. official: 30 dead after Israeli strike near school

GAZA CITY (CNN) -- Three Israeli artillery shells struck near the perimeter of a U.N. school in northern Gaza on Tuesday, killing at least 30 people and wounding 55, a United Nations official said.

U.N. Relief and Works Agency Director John Ging said most of the casualties were outside the school in the Jabalya refugee camp.

"It's a very built-up area, so of course it was entirely inevitable that if artillery shells landed in that area there would be a high number of casualties," he said at a U.N. briefing from Gaza City.

Palestinian sources said 44 were killed in the attack.

The Israeli military told CNN it is checking the report.

It was the second Israeli strike affecting a U.N. school in Gaza. Three Palestinian men, all members of the same family, were killed Monday night in Gaza City by a direct hit on an elementary school, UNRWA said.

Both schools were being used as shelters for civilians fleeing the ongoing military operation. The buildings were "clearly marked" with U.N. flags and UNRWA had given the global-positioning coordinates of all its schools to Israeli authorities the agency said.

UNRWA said 400 Palestinians were staying in the Asma Elementary school at the time of the Monday night airstrike.

The latest incidents came as Israeli ground forces surrounded densely populated Gaza City after at least 50 airstrikes pounded the region overnight.
(02:57 min.)
Gaza City surrounded
Israeli troops inching closer to urban centers. CNN's Ben Wedeman reports

Other airstrikes hit the homes of people linked to Hamas, including the Wadi family in Jabalya, Hamas security sources said. Eight people were killed in that strike. An overnight airstrike hit the Jabalya home of Imad Siam, one of the leaders of Hamas' military wing.

Israel claimed Tuesday to have killed 130 Hamas fighters since beginning a ground offensive at dusk Saturday. An Israeli soldier was killed Tuesday morning in northern Gaza City, the Israeli military said, bringing the total to six since the incursion began.

As Israeli forces encircled Gaza City -- which has a population of about 400,000 -- diplomats turned up the heat for a cease-fire.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will confer Tuesday at the United Nations with a variety of officials, including Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the State Department said. iReport.com: Share reactions to "all-out war" in Gaza

Abbas plans to present a resolution drafted by the Arab League to the U.N. Security Council. The resolution will call for Israel to stop its offensive in Gaza and for Hamas, which rules the territory, to cease firing rockets at the Jewish state.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told French President Nicolas Sarkozy Monday that Israel wanted a "full solution" to the conflict, not just a cease-fire that allowed Hamas to fortify itself, Mark Regev, Olmert's spokesman, said.
(03:08 min.)
Blair on Gaza
CNN's Christiane Amanpour sits down with Tony Blair and gets his reaction to the conflict in the Middle East.

"Before the last cease-fire with Hamas began, Hamas had missiles with a range of 20 kilometers," Regev said Tuesday. "By the end of the cease-fire, the range of the missiles grew to 40 kilometers. Israel does not want the next cease-fire to allow them to get missiles with a range of 60 kilometers."

A Hamas rocket penetrated farther than ever before into Israel on Tuesday, landing in the town of Gadera, about 36 kilometers (23 miles) north of the Gaza border, the Israeli military said. On Monday, a rocket hit a kindergarten in Ashdod, about 26 kilometers (16 miles) north of Gaza.
(02:25 min.)
BackStory: Rafah border
Egypt is keeping journalists out of Gaza but Karl Penhaul shows how close you can get.

Hamas had fired 30 rockets at Israel by Tuesday afternoon, the Israeli military said. Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida warned Israel that the militants would continue rocket attacks "for many months" and vowed to strike deeper into Israeli territory.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza has deteriorated. Hundreds of wounded people swarmed into Gaza's largest hospital.
(02:43 min.)
Gaza hospital overflowing
CNN's Christiane Amanpour reports on a Gaza hospital overflowing with casualties, many of them civilians.

The Israeli military said 80 trucks with humanitarian aid would be allowed to pass into Gaza on Tuesday at the Kerem Shalom crossing.

Before the second school attack, Palestinian medical sources said 23 people were killed in Gaza on Tuesday, bringing the Palestinian death toll to 555 since Israel commenced airstrikes on December 27.

CNN's Talal Abu Rahma in Gaza City, Michal Zippori in Jerusalem and Nic Robertson, Ben Wedeman and Paula Hancocks on the Israel-Gaza border contributed to this report.