Israel calls up 16,000 additional reservists as UN condemns shelling of Gaza market, school

Israel mobilised 16,000 additional reservists on July 31 to bolster its forces waging military operations in the Gaza Strip that left more than 100 Palestinians dead in a day.

The call-up came after Washington announced it had agreed to restock Israel's dwindling supplies of ammunition despite its sharp condemnation of an attack on a United Nations school in Gaza blamed on Israel's army.

"The army has issued 16,000 additional mobilisation orders to allow troops on the ground to rest, which takes the total number of reservists to 86,000," an army spokeswoman said.

Israel's security cabinet, which met for five hours July 30, unanimously decided to pursue attacks against Hamas "terrorist targets" and other operations to destroy a network of tunnels used by the Islamist movement between Gaza and Israel, public radio said.

Public radio quoted Major General Sami Turgeman, the senior officer for the Gaza region, as saying that the destruction of militants' remaining tunnels into Israel could be complete "in a few days."

More than 100 Palestinians died in the Gaza Strip July 30, among them the victims of Israeli fire on a market and the U.N. school where Palestinians fleeing the fighting had sought refuge. At least 17 people were killed in the strike on the market in Shejaiya, near Gaza City, as Israel observed a four-hour humanitarian lull in other parts of the crowded coastal strip.

The market strike came hours after Israeli shells slammed into a U.N. school in Jabalia refugee camp which was sheltering some 3,300 homeless Gazans, killing 16 and drawing a furious response from the United Nations.

"This morning a U.N. school sheltering thousands of Palestinian families suffered a reprehensible attack," UN chief Ban...