UN workers and Palestinian firefighters, some wearing bulletproof jackets, struggled to douse the flames and pull bags of food from the debris after the Israeli attack, which was another blow to efforts to ease the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. Dense smoke billowed from the compound.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is in the region to end the devastating offensive against Gaza´s Hamas rulers, demanded a "full explanation" and said the Israeli defense minister told him there had been a "grave mistake."
The UN compound struck Thursday houses the U.N. Works and Relief Agency, which distributes food aid to hundreds of thousands of destitute Gazans in the tiny seaside territory of 1.4 million people.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the military fired artillery shells at the UN compound after Hamas militants opened fire from the location. Three people were wounded.
"It is absolutely true that we were attacked from that place, but the consequences are very sad and we apologize for it," Olmert said. "I don´t think it should have happened and I´m very sorry."
A senior Israeli military officer had also said Israeli troops shelled the UN compound after coming under fire from Palestinian militants there — an account dismissed by a UN official there at the time as "nonsense."
An Israeli attack near a UN school in northern Gaza earlier this month killed nearly 40 people. At the time, Israel said militants had fired on army positions from the beginning.
Even as a top Israeli envoy went to Egypt to discuss a cease-fire proposal, the military pushed farther into Gaza in an apparent effort to step up pressure on Hamas. Ground forces thrust deep into a crowded neighborhood for the first time, sending terrified residents fleeing for cover. Shells also struck a hospital, five high-rise apartment buildings and a building housing media outlets in Gaza City, injuring several journalists.
Bullets also entered another building housing The Associated Press offices, entering a room where two staffers were working but wounding no one. The Foreign Press Association, representing journalists covering Israel and the Palestinian territories, demanded a halt to attacks on press buildings.
The army had collected the locations of media organizations at the outset of fighting to avoid such attacks.
Israel launched its war on December 27 in an effort to stop militant rocket fire from Gaza that has terrorized hundreds of thousands of Israelis. Some 1,100 Palestinians have been killed, roughly half of them civilians, according to UN and Palestinian medical officials. Gaza health official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said at least 70 people were killed or died of wounds throughout Gaza on Thursday.
Thirteen Israelis also have been killed since the campaign began. Israel says it will press ahead until Hamas halts the rocket fire and stops smuggling weapons into Gaza from neighboring Egypt.
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