Smash hit

“I saw a lot of women and children wheeled in,” said Fares Ghanem, an official at Kamal Radwan Hospital. “A lot of the wounded were missing limbs and a lot of the dead were in pieces.”

The number of children killed in Gaza has now reached 100, according to Save the Children. The figure does not include those killed today.

Ken Caldwell, the charity's Director of International Operations, said: “Young children are suffering the worst of this crisis. They are under immense stress, often unable to sleep, some in such a state of shock that they are unable to cry.

“The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is worsening hour by hour. Thousands of young lives are now in acute danger. Every world leader must urgently push again for a ceasefire and immediate humanitarian access, otherwise children will continue to die."

Schools run by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) have opened their doors to provide shelters for thousands of Palestinians who have fled their homes. At least 17 schools are sheltering more than 5,000 people. Nine of the schools in the Jabaliya refugee camp are in the front line of fighting.

Three people were also killed at another UN-run school in the southern city of Khan Younis when Israeli tank fire showered the building where they were sheltering from the conflict. More than 600 Palestinians have lost their lives during the battle between Israeli forces and Hamas militants, which is now in its 11th day. A quarter of those are civilians, according to the UN. Three people also died in an air strike on a school in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, medics said.

Max Gaylard, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator for the Palestinian territories, said that Israel had the GPS co-ordinates of all UN buildings in Gaza – including its schools. “Neither homes nor UN shelters are safe” for civilians, he said in a statement that reaffirmed UN ceasefire calls.

“These tragic incidents need to be investigated, and if international humanitarian law has been contravened, those responsible must be held accountable."

John Ging, the top UN official in Gaza, said: "There's nowhere safe in Gaza. Everyone here is terrorised and traumatised."

Speaking from the largest hospital in the region, he said: "I am appealing to political leaders here and in the region and the world to get their act together and stop this. "They are responsible for these deaths."

Twenty-four Hamas rockets were fired into Israel today; one wounding an Israeli infant.

Five Israeli soldiers have been killed in the past 24 hours. One died in an attack by Hamas militants in the north of Gaza city this morning.

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