Israeli ground troops ordered around 110 Palestinian civilians into a single home in Gaza City’s Zeitun neighborhood and ordered them to stay indoors on Sunday. On Monday morning, Israeli forces repeatedly shelled the building, killing at least 30 of the civilians inside. It then refused to allow ambulances to retrieve the dead and dying people for days.

This was the report released by the United Nations today based on eyewitness accounts from the survivors, and just the latest in an ever growing list of Israeli attacks on the civilian population of Gaza. Over the first two weeks of the Israeli attack, at least 800 people have been killed, and another 3,300 have been wounded. The vast majority of the strip has been without electricity since then, and a growing percentage are without clean water and dependent on intermittent humanitarian aid shipments for other basic necessities.

Israel has refused to comment on the latest allegations, but the United States defending the growing civilian toll, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying that in such a densely populated area it is really hard for Israel to avoid what it has been doing, which is killing scores of civilians on a near daily basis. Though Rice attributed the civilian toll to Hamas using them as human shields, there was one again no indication that these civilians, though directly attacked, were anywhere near any Hamas targets.

Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz

• Four Killed as Another US Drone Strike Hits Pakistan - February 8th, 2012
• Food Prices Soaring in Iran as US Sanctions Miss Regime and Hit Civilians - February 8th, 2012
• House Hearings on Balochistan: Pakistan's Kosovo? - February 8th, 2012
• Syrian Opposition Claims Massive Deaths in Homs, Clashes Reported in Daraa - February 8th, 2012
• Egypt PM: US Aid Threats Won't Stop NGO Prosecutions - February 8th, 2012