Israel starts withdrawing troops, 10 dead in UN school attack

At least 10 people were killed today in a fresh Israeli strike on a UN school sheltering displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza even as Israel began withdrawing some troops from the coastal strip with the Palestinian death toll climbing to over 1,800.
The attack on the UN school in Rafah where around 3,000 Palestinians who had been made homeless by the violence had been sheltering, injured 30 people, the third such incident within 10 days.
Israel's military confirmed it fired on a target near a UN school in the southern Gaza city of Rafah today.
The attack was strongly condemned by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who called it "a moral outrage and a criminal act."

"This madness must stop," he said.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said that Operation Protective Edge was still "ongoing" and only undergoing "re-assessment and re-organisation" as per Israel's security needs.

"The operation is not over, it is pretty much ongoing. We are only re-assessing and re-organising troops constantly based on our security needs", an IDF spokesman Capt Ronnie Kaplan told PTI.
Emphasising that IDF is "carefully evaluating the pros and cons of deployment in various areas of Gaza", Kaplan asserted that neutralising the "terror tunnels" is a priority and Israel will not withdraw till it is completed.
"We are still on alert", he added.

Other security sources here estimated that the infiltration tunnels had been more or less identified and destroying them was a matter of "very few days".
More than 71 people were killed in Rafah alone in a fresh wave of bloodshed which sent the death toll spiraling over 1,800.
Nine members of a family were also killed today in Israeli attacks in Rafah.
More than 9,320 people have been wounded in the 27-day conflict. The dead include 398 children, 207 women and 74 elderly people, officials said.
Meanwhile, missing IDF officer 2nd Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, said to have been captured by Hamas, was declared dead by Chief Military Rabbi Raffi Peretz.

The Givati commander died on Friday in Rafah when his group came under attack by Gaza militants during a humanitarian ceasefire.
Another officer and a soldier from Givati's Brigade, Major Benaya Sarel and Staff Sergeant Liel Gidoni, were also killed in the attack aided by a suicide bomber.
The deaths mean that 66 Israelis have now died in the fighting, all but two of them soldiers. A Thai worker in Israel also died.