COSTA RICA NEWS – July 30, 2014, 2:47PM CT – In San José, Costa Rica, this Wednesday afternoon, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack on a U.N. school in Gaza that killed at least 16 people early Wednesday as “outrageous” and “unjustifiable,” and demanded an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas.
“Nothing is more shameful than attacking sleeping children,” Ban said. “I condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms.”
Ban said “all available evidence points to Israeli artillery as the cause” of the pre-dawn attack, and he pointedly noted that Israeli military authorities had received the coordinates of the school from the United Nations 17 times, including on Tuesday night.
At U.N. headquarters in New York, Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson expressed “shock and dismay” at the attack that also injured more than 100. He stressed that more than 3,000 civilians had sought shelter at the elementary girls’ school in the Jebaliya refugee camp.
Eliasson asked the world to remember the human beings at the center of the war.
He took a copy of the U.N. Charter out of his pocket and read the first few words, “We the peoples…” to stress that “this organization is about people in the end.”
The U.N. Security Council scheduled a briefing Thursday morning on the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza at the request of Jordan, the Arab representative on the council.
Eliasson and Ban urged both sides to agree to an immediate, unconditional humanitarian cease-fire and talks to resolve outstanding issues peacefully.
Sources: Associated Press; CNN; BBC;
