During the recent War on Gaza, a disproportionate number of civilians - many of them children - were killed in attacks by the Israeli Defense Forces. But there is another casualty of war which has received surprisingly little international attention. Since the bombing raids began, 17 journalists have been killed in Gaza, prompting calls for war crimes charges to be brought against the State of Israel and those involved in carrying out this war.

An examination of an Israeli barrage that put a line of at least 10 shells through a United Nations school sheltering displaced Palestinians here last week suggests that Israeli troops paid little heed to warnings to safeguard such sites and may have unleashed weapons inappropriate for urban areas despite rising alarm over civilian deaths.

United Nations officials described the killing of sleeping children as a disgrace to the world and accused Israel of a serious violation of international law after a school in Gaza being used to shelter Palestinian families was shelled on Wednesday. At least 15 people, mostly children and women, died when the school in Jabaliya refugee camp was hit by five shells during a night of relentless bombardment across Gaza. More than 100 people were injured.

The strikes came in rapid succession. At around 5 a.m. Wednesday at a United Nations school at the Jabaliya refugee camp, where 3,300 Palestinians had taken refuge from the fierce fighting in their Gaza neighborhoods, what appeared to be four Israeli artillery shells hit the compound.

For more than a week, as the war engulfed their homes, families in this northern Gaza town packed up their belongings and children and headed to the one place they presumed would remain safe: the United Nations school. But in the last few days, the war approached there as well. The Israeli military warned on Monday that the shelter should be evacuated. By Thursday, the United Nations had decided to withdraw its staff and to stop providing food. Then, as the Palestinians gathered in the courtyard on Thursday, believing they were about to be bused elsewhere, blasts tore through the crowd, killing 16 people and sending scores of wounded, mostly women and children, streaming into local hospitals.

As Israel s air war against Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters in Gaza entered its sixth day on Saturday, a pair of bombings threw the difficulties of the campaign into painful relief: Israel bombed a mosque, which its aerial photos indicated was harboring a weapons cache, and a center for the handicapped, killing two handicapped patients and wounding three, as well as a caretaker.

Israel could be violating the laws of war by bombing Palestinian homes in Gaza, the UN s human rights office said Friday, as the death toll from the Israeli strikes rose to 100. "We have received disturbing reports that many of the civilian casualties, including of children, occurred as a result of strikes on homes," said spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani..