Israel agrees four-hour Gaza ceasefire as UN rages over school strike

Israel agreed July 30 to observe a four-hour lull in Gaza several hours after a deadly strike on a school killed 16, drawing a furious response from a U.N. refugee agency. In a statement, the army said it had agreed to a humanitarian pause which was to begin at 12:00 GMT. But it said the lull would not apply in areas where the army was "currently operating" and warned those who had fled their homes not to return.        

The announcement came as the Israeli security cabinet was meeting in Tel Aviv to discuss an Egyptian proposal for a more permanent ceasefire, army radio reported. The temporary truce deal comes just hours after two Israel shells slammed into a U.N. school in the northern Gaza Strip where more than 3,000 people had sought shelter, killing at least 16 of them.        

It was the second time in a week that a U.N. school had been hit, hiking the death toll in Gaza from 23 days of bloodshed to around 1,300 and drawing a furious denunciation from the head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.        

"I condemn in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces," said UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krahenbuhl, saying the school's location had been communicated to the Israeli army 17 times.

"No words to adequately express my anger and indignation," he wrote on his official Twitter account, saying that 3,300 people had been sheltering there at the time. "I call on the international community to take deliberate international political action to put an immediate end to the continuing carnage," he said.

Violence in Gaza claimed more than 70 lives on July 30, with the worst strike at the school in Jabaliya refugee camp. U.N. figures show up...