GAZA CITY, Jan 31 (AFP) - A fledgling Palestinian truce was punctured Monday when the radical Islamist movement Hamas fired mortar shells at settlements in the southern Gaza Strip after the fatal shooting of a Palestinian schoolgirl.
The armed wing of Hamas, which was meant to be observing an unofficial temporary truce, said it fired a total of seven mortars against the settlement of Neve Dekalim and also targetted the nearby Atzmona settlement.
The attacks were "an answer to the Zionist crimes which do not stop, including the murder of the schoolgirl", a statement by the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said two shells had landed in a settlement in southern Gaza without causing injuries.
"Two apparent mortar shells landed in an Israeli community in the southern Gaza Strip. There were no injuries but damage was caused," she told AFP.
Sources said one mortar landed on a house but failed to explode while another landed harmlessly on the outskirts of the settlement.
The attack came after 10-year-old Nuran Deab was shot dead at a UN-run school in the southern town of Rafah in an incident which medical sources said was the result of Israeli army gunfire.
The youngster died instantly after being shot in the head at the school in the Brazil neighbourhood of the Rafah refugee camp.
A second girl, aged seven, was also shot in the hand, the sources said.
A spokesman for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA confirmed that one girl had been shot dead and another wounded at the elementary school which is located around half a mile (800 meters) from the Israeli-manned border between Gaza and Egypt.
"Initial reports show that there had been some firing from the Salahuddin gate at the time," spokesman Paul McCann said in reference to an army observation post.
Sources at the school said youngsters had been queuing up in the schoolyard for morning assembly when the shooting occurred.
McCann said it was the fifth occasion that a pupil had been either wounded or killed by Israeli gunfire at UNRWA schools in Gaza. Two girls were killed in separate incidents in Rafah and Khan Yunis last year and a young girl was blinded in Khan Yunis in 2003.
UNRWA said in a statement that it had repeatedly protested what it called the Israeli military's "indiscriminate firing into civilian areas in the occupied Palestinian territory".
"Despite the hopeful signs of improvement in the situation we have again been reminded of the continuing danger to which innocent children are exposed by the realities of the occupation and the irresponsible use of arms," said Peter Hansen, UNRWA's commissioner-general.
An Israeli military source said the army was not aware of any shooting incident in the area after an initial investigation.
"This report is being investigated at the highest possible level and will be investigated in coordination with the Palestinians," she added.
Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas has persuaded Hamas to observe a temporary "cooling down" period which he is hoping to convert into a formal ceasefire declaration but wants Israel to reciprocate by ending its military operations in the occupied territories and release Palestinian prisoners.
Israel announced Friday an end to offensive operations in Gaza after thousands of Palestinian troops were deployed across the territory with orders to halt rocket and mortar attacks.
The latest death raised to 4,725 the number of people killed since the start of the Palestinian intifada or uprising in September 2000, including 3,670 Palestinians and 981 Israelis.
01/31/2005 15:52 GMT - AFP