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Israel Hits U.N.-Run School in Gaza
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Warda said many of the wounded had to be placed on the floor and treated there because of a bed shortage. Others were sent to another hospital, in Gaza City. "Some might have died on the way," he said.
Ging called the fighting "the product of political failure" and accused Israel of depriving Palestinians of critically needed infrastructure.
In a report, the U.N. humanitarian office in Gaza said Tuesday that water and sewage systems in the strip were on the verge of collapse because of power outages and that a third of Gaza's residents are completely cut off from running water.
As the sense of crisis in Gaza deepened, Israeli forces battled on both ends of the 40-mile-long strip, and reports from within the territory suggested the military was tightening its grip. Witnesses said that Israel made gains in Khan Younis, in the south, and that there was intense fighting around Gaza City, in the north.
One Israeli soldier was killed Tuesday, bringing to six the total dead since Israel launched its ground offensive Saturday night. Of those, four were killed in "friendly fire" incidents.
Three Israeli civilians and a soldier were killed by rocket fire earlier in the campaign.
In his remarks, Obama said he was "not backing away at all from what I said during the campaign. . . . Starting at the beginning of our administration, we're going to engage effectively and consistently in trying to resolve the conflict in the Middle East."
Leading the push for a truce in Gaza is French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been visiting Middle Eastern capitals this week, urging an immediate cease-fire.
Sarkozy said the deaths at the school illustrated the need for a nonmilitary solution. "This reinforces my determination for this to end as quickly as possible," Sarkozy told reporters in the southern Lebanese town of At Tiri after learning of the school attack. "Time works against us; that's why we must find a solution."
Sarkozy was also in Damascus, Syria, on Tuesday, in a bid to get President Bashar al-Assad to pressure Hamas into agreeing to a truce. Syria and Iran are two of Hamas's biggest backers.
Assad called Israel's offensive "a war crime." But he also urged a cease-fire.
Hamas, which has never recognized Israel, has vowed to fight on. Israel says it will not stop its offensive until it has international guarantees that Hamas can be prevented from continuing to fire rockets.
As Sarkozy visited Egypt late Tuesday, President Hosni Mubarak said he would propose an immediate cease-fire, followed by talks on the Israeli blockade of Gaza and on ways of keeping arms from being smuggled into Gaza via Egypt.
Egypt mediated a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel this summer. The expiration of that truce Dec. 19 precipitated the latest round of violence.
In New York, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Olmert had responded to Mubarak's initiative with an offer to open a humanitarian corridor into Gaza but did not say whether Israel would participate in talks with the Palestinians. "We are awaiting the Israeli response and we harbor hope that it will be a positive one," Kouchner said.
Staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations and special correspondents Reyham Abdel Kareem in Gaza City and Samuel Sockol in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
