After seeing only a small fraction of the destruction that the Israeli air, naval and ground assault brought on Gaza, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, standing near unexploded rockets on the ground and twisted, still-smoking metal doors of a U.N. warehouse, said the scenes were "heartbreaking."
"I am just appalled and not able to describe how I am feeling," Ban said during his visit to the U.N. main compound in Gaza on Tuesday. "It's an outrageous and totally unacceptable attack against the United Nations. I have protested many times and I protest again in the strongest terms."
He stressed that it was "particularly significant for a secretary-general of the U.N. to stand in front of this bombed site of the U.N. compound," and called for a full probe into the incident, adding "there should be accountability through a proper judiciary system."
The U.N. chief maintained his diplomatic balancing act, as he accused Israel of using "excessive force," and denounced Palestinian rocket fire on southern Israel as "completely unacceptable."
Ban, the first world leader to visit Gaza since Israel and Hamas declared separate ceasefires this week, was addressing journalists as the flour that the U.N. agency for refugees (UNRWA) should have distributed was still burning from last Thursday's bombing.
It was shortly after Ban had arrived in Israel on Thursday to seek a ceasefire that the Israeli army had bombed this site, to which he had protested angrily. He said the Israeli leaders had apologized as they had earlier given assurances that the U.N. buildings and staff would be respected.
Two days later, another UNRWA school was hit, killing two young brothers and severely injuring their mother. Earlier in the war, Israel bombed a U.N. school sheltering hundreds of civilians fleeing the warfare, killing 43 people. A total of four U.N.-run schools were hit.
Israel claimed fighters were shooting from the schools. But UNRWA, which Israel eyes suspiciously and accuses many of its 10,000 staff in Gaza as being affiliated with Hamas, strongly denied that its facilities were used for combat purposes.
The agency was conceived soon after Israel set up its state in Palestine in 1948 to provide social, medical and education services for Palestinian refugees. It currently provides more than half of Gaza's 1.5 million people with food and other badly-needed supplies.
Ban, who avoided meeting with Hamas officials during his Gaza visit, came under criticism for not visiting the U.N. schools sheltering thousands of Palestinians left homeless. They said that if he had seen their conditions, in which dozens of people and children were crammed into a single classroom after their homes were bombed, he would launch an investigation into more than just targeting the main U.N. compound.
The war left at least 1,300 Palestinians dead, including 410 children and 100 women, and another 5,300 others wounded – 1,855 of them children and 795 women. More than 4,000 buildings were completely destroyed and 20,000 badly damaged, leaving tens of thousands of Palestinians without homes.
Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were killed in combat and Palestinian rocket fire.
Demands for investigations into Israel's overwhelming use of firepower during this assault continued to pour in, including calls from Israeli human rights groups who condemned the "terrifying" number of casualties among women and children.
Israeli Haaretz daily reported Wednesday the army has launched an inquiry into whether paratroopers used banned white phosphorous shells close to civilians, focusing on 20 shells fired in the populated area around Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip.
International rights groups said that Israeli forces had used white phosphorous excessively on civilian areas in Gaza, one of the world's most densely-populated territories.
Amnesty International said Israel's use of this artillery fire near civilians constituted a war crime, since white phosphorous is used by armies to create smoke screens but its use near civilians is banned.
White phosphorous burns skin through to the bone, causing painful and serious injuries and death; its ingestion or inhalation can be deadly.
Human Rights Watch earlier accused Israel of firing "dozens and dozens" of these shells on Gaza, and large numbers of casualties were reported having unusual and severe burns.
Israel insisted that all the weapons it used during the assault were permitted by international law.
Meanwhile, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Wednesday it would investigate allegations by Arab countries that Israel may have used ammunition containing depleted uranium in Gaza.
Political and rights groups across the Arab world have vowed not to let Israel get away with the death and destruction its military caused in Gaza in the latest war, and they say they are taking legal action to pursue war crimes against the Jewish state at the International Criminal Court (ICC) or through other channels.
They say the ICC cannot investigate Israel on war crimes because it is not a formal member of the court. Grabbing a binding resolution from the U.N. Security Council for a probe – which the international body is able to do – was unlikely since the United States could, and probably would, block such a step with a veto. Plus, there is no Palestinian state to ask for a referral to the ICC.
Nevertheless, Arab non-government organizations and legal experts say they are working with international institutions to take judicial action against Israeli leaders in as many Western countries as possible.
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