Strike on UN Gaza school kills at least 10 as Israel starts troop pullout

At least 10 people died in a fresh strike on a U.N. school in Gaza Aug. 3 shortly after Israel confirmed it had begun withdrawing some
troops from the war-torn enclave.        

The strike on the
school sheltering displaced Palestinians in the southern city of Rafah
came as Israel pounded the region following the suspected capture of a
soldier by militants, who was later declared dead.        

It
was the third time in 10 days that a U.N. school had been hit and came
four days after Israeli tank shells slammed into a school in the
northern town of Jabaliya, killing 16 in an attack furiously denounced
by U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon as "reprehensible."

An AFP
correspondent said there were scenes of chaos at the site, with rescuers trying to evacuate the wounded any way they could, while adults were
seen sprinting frantically away through pools of blood, young children
clutched in their arms.

Chris Gunness, spokesman for the U.N.
agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said the school had been
housing thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) who had been
forced to flee their homes by the ongoing violence in Gaza.

"Shelling incident in vicinity of UNRWA school in Rafah sheltering almost 3,000
IDP. Initial reports say multiple deaths and injury," he wrote on his
Twitter feed.

Regional efforts to broker a diplomatic end to the
fighting between Israel and Hamas have so far proved elusive, with their confrontation in Gaza now in its 27th day with more than 1,700 people
killed.

A Palestinian delegation was to hold truce talks Aug. 3
in Cairo with senior U.S. and Egyptian officials, but Israel has said it sees no point in sending its negotiators to the meeting, citing what it says...