Up to 40 people have been reported killed after an Israeli artillery strike on a United Nations-run school where families were sheltering from the Israeli offensive, the U.N. confirmed Tuesday. Many of those killed were children, according to the U.N. There were at least 55 injured in the attack, five of them critically. “It's quite a horrific situation here today,” said John Ging, the top U.N. official in Gaza, who was speaking to reporters at U.N. headquarters via video link. “The casualty numbers are mounting. Even though we have provided our GPS coordinates to the Israeli military and our installations are clearly marked, these tragedies have occurred. There is nowhere safe.” This was the third U.N. run facility in Gaza to come under attack in 24 hours. A missile strike on another U.N. school late Monday evening killed three young men, Ging said. An attack on a house adjacent to a U.N. health center resulted in 10 people being injured -- seven U.N. staff and three patients. The house targeted in the attack received no notice of an impending strike, Ging said. The deaths bring to more than 600 the number of people killed in the 11-day Israeli offensive. At least 25 percent of the casualties are children the U.N. says. So far, more than 100 children have been killed. Almost 3,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been injured in the same period and hospitals in Gaza are reporting that 50 percent of the injured are civilians. “I was in Shifa hospital today,” Ging said. “I saw first hand the casualties coming in…It's unrelenting.” He stressed that no U.N. installation has housed any Hamas militants. “We very carefully vet anyone seeking shelter in our locations. The sanctity of our facilities has not been violated.”
