ISRAEL last night took a step back from all-out war in Gaza after agreeing to a United Nations plan to suspend some attacks and open an "aid corridor" into the stricken territory.
Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, signalled an apparent softening of the Israeli stance just hours after a bombardment left at least 30 civilians dead at a UN-run school, sparking international outrage.
There were also hopes last night that Israel might be prepared to accept a ceasefire proposal put forward by France and Egypt to bring the escalating conflict to a halt.
The school attack was seen as a major setback to the Jewish state's attempts to win the PR battle over its Gaza incursion. Hundreds of Palestinians had sought safety in the building when it came under attack yesterday.
Many women and children were reported to be among the dead after shells struck outside the Fakhura school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, leading to renewed international demands for an end to the bloodshed. The Israeli army claimed two Hamas militants were among the dead and accused the group of using civilians as human shields.
Under last night's plans tabled at the UN Security Council in New York, Israel would suspend attacks in some areas of Gaza to allow civilians access to supplies.
While Israel had not responded to calls for a complete ceasefire in the early hours today, a statement from Mr Olmert's office said the proposal to create an aid corridor had been accepted to "prevent a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip".
Israel insists it has allowed enough supplies into the territory during 11 days of conflict, but the UN says there is already a crisis there because of shortages of food, fuel and medicine.
In the school attack, three mortar shells landed at the perimeter of the building. As well as the dead, 55 people were injured.
The explosions – which resulted in shrapnel being sprayed over victims inside and outside the building – marked the second Israeli attack on a UN-run school. Earlier, at least three Palestinians were killed when a school was hit in the Shati refugee camp.
Outside the Fakhura school, the target of the second attack, bodies could be seen scattered on the ground amid pools of blood, while torn shoes and clothes littered the scene.
Fares Ghanem, an official at Kamal Radwan Hospital, said: "I saw a lot of women and children wheeled in. A lot of the wounded were missing limbs and a lot of the dead were in pieces."
Majed Hamdan, a news photographer, said he reached the scene shortly after the attacks, and stated that many children were among the dead. "I saw women and men – parents – slapping their faces in grief, screaming, some of them collapsed to the floor. They knew their children were dead," he said.
"In the mortuary, most appeared to be children. In the hospital, there was not enough space for the wounded."
John Ging, the top UN official in Gaza, said: "There's nowhere safe in Gaza. Everyone here is terrorised and traumatised.
"I am appealing to political leaders here and in the region and the world to get their act together and stop this," he said. "They are responsible for these deaths."
In a statement, the Israeli army said an initial investigation had found "mortar shells were fired from within the school at IDF (Israeli Defence Force] soldiers. The force responded with mortars. The Hamas cynically uses civilians as human shields".
However, hospital officials insisted they had not seen any gunmen among the casualties.
It was the deadliest attack since Israel sent ground forces into Gaza last weekend. The assault has left nearly 600 Palestinians dead.
The rising death toll has drawn international condemnation and raised concerns of a looming humanitarian disaster in Gaza, which is home to 1.5 million people.
Many Gazans are without electricity or running water, thousands have been displaced from their homes and food supplies are running out.
"This is not a crisis – it's a disaster," said Munzir Shiblak, an official with Gaza's water utility body. "We are not even able to respond to the cry of the people."
A senior UN official in Gaza said 350 people had been sheltering at the Fakhura school and the UN gave the Israeli army exact co-ordinates to protect them from attack.
UN staff estimate that 15,000 people have fled to 23 of its schools that have been turned into makeshift refuges.
The school deaths in Gaza took the number of Palestinian civilians killed yesterday alone to 77, according to medical officials.
Earlier yesterday, Israel said it would not stop the overall assault until its southern towns were freed from the threat of Palestinian rocket fire and there were guarantees Hamas would not restock its weapons.
The growing number of civilian casualties could prove to be a turning point in Israel's "Operation Cast Lead", which was launched on 27 December.
The killing of 28 unarmed Lebanese during Israeli bombing of the village of Qana in the 2006 Lebanon war drained foreign support for its campaign against Hezbollah guerrillas. Israel said it had not known civilians were in the area.
Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, last night said the situation in Gaza was a "humanitarian crisis", and went on: "This is the darkest moment yet for the Middle East and it affects the whole of the world.
"It's because of that we must get humanitarian aid that we are promising in."
The US state department said it wanted an immediate ceasefire but stressed it would not alter its stance that it must be sustainable and indefinite.
Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, said he supported a proposal by Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, for an immediate truce between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza. The plan was also backed by the United States last night.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, said he would travel to Israel and the Palestinian territories next week, adding it was vital to reach a ceasefire in Gaza before then.
Barack Obama, the US president-elect, said he was "deeply concerned" about civilian casualties in Gaza.
United Nations officials pleaded with world leaders to unite in a bid to end the carnage, while the International Committee of the Red Cross warned of a "full-blown humanitarian crisis".
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Blair is accused of siding with Israelis•
This is now full-blown crisis, says Red CrossAnalysis: Will school bloodbath prove historic turning point? Ben Lynfield in JerusalemISRAELI officials were last night struggling to contain the diplomatic and public relations fallout from yesterday's shelling of the al-Fakhora school in the Gaza Strip – where dozens were killed in the most graphic demonstration of the mounting toll Israel's Gaza war is taking on Palestinian non-combatants.
The tragedy may one day be looked back on as the point where Israel lost the upper hand in the conflict with the Islamic militant group and with it any remaining sympathy in the international community for what was initially seen by many as a justified military operation to stop Hamas rocket attacks.
In 1996, civilian deaths from the Israeli army's shelling of a UN compound in Lebanon touched off an international outcry, that forced Israel to stop a military campaign.
Although Israeli officials were quick to stress the line that Hamas fire was coming from the area and that fighters were among the dead, Israeli leaders are well aware that dismay over the deaths could significantly increase diplomatic pressure for a ceasefire. This even though Israel has not yet achieved its objective of clearly defeating Hamas – if such a goal were ever achievable by military means.
Indeed, the school shelling, or massacre, in Arab eyes, could not have come at a more diplomatically sensitive time – hours before the UN Security Council was about to convene on the Gaza crisis, with French president Nicolas Sarkozy in the region leading European efforts to halt the fighting, and America's moderate Arab allies pressing the United States to stop giving Israel a free hand.
"Now the game is how to end it," said Menachem Klein, a dovish Israeli political scientist. "There are many tailors trying to form the exit suit. Israel will have to be responsive. Israel cannot continue saying there will be zero gains for Hamas. The terms of the ceasefire will not be one hundred per cent favourable to Israel."
However, no-one should expect this war to end immediately. The Israeli public is ready to go on and there is a lobby for trying to overthrow Hamas, even if this means a total reoccupation of the Strip. Such is the sense in Israel of the justness of the Gaza war – despite the high toll of Palestinian civilian casualties – that Eitan Haber, a leading newspaper columnist, termed it "a battle of the sons of light against the sons of darkness".
Many Israeli leaders and senior army officers look to this war as a "corrective experience" from the stalemate outcome of Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah. This time, they are determined Israel will win and its "deterrent capability" will be restored. But Hamas, like Hezbollah, has a different view of what defeat and victory are. Just by staying somewhat intact, they can declare a victory as heroes who stood up against the most powerful army in the Middle East.
The full article contains 1571 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
