USA Today · McLean, Virginia · 25 July 2014
CP-2014-005
Human rights and human shields
Hamas, Israel blasted for civilian casualties
Oren Dorell, USA Today
Transcribed from the clipping
“NEWS ANALYSIS. The deaths of at least 15 Gazans taking shelter Thursday in a United Nations-run school contributed to a Palestinian death toll that has surpassed 700 — and a debate about whether Israel is violating human rights or contending with an enemy that is using human shields.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said it warned the U.N. to evacuate the building, but that the militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, prevented the evacuation, fired more rockets from the site and also hit the site with its own rockets.
Violence also spread to the West Bank late Thursday, where thousands of Palestinians protesting the Gaza fighting clashed with Israeli soldiers in Qalandia, near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
The deaths Thursday, on the 17th day of fighting in Gaza, come a day after two different U.N. agencies issued condemnations — one of Palestinian militants and one of Israel — for taking actions that endanger civilians. The mounting fatalities are prompting sharp criticism of both Hamas and Israel.
The Jewish state is bearing the brunt of the international outrage because of lopsided fatalities — 20 Palestinians for every Israeli — and graphic images such as four Palestinian children on a beach killed by Israeli strikes. Hamas openly targets Israeli civilians, but has been stymied by Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system.
Israel says it takes precautions to limit civilian casualties, even as it executes a military operation in a densely populated, urban environment to stop militants from attacking Israeli communities with rockets and terrorist assault teams. The U.N.
Relief and Works Agency, which runs the school hit Thursday, blasted unnamed militant groups the day before for hiding rockets in an abandoned school situated between two other schools used as shelters by 1,500 people. The discovery was the second time UNRWA discovered rockets in one of its schools.
Its workers found 20 rockets hidden in a school July 16, according to a UNRWA statement.”
Context added by this archive
Filed as news analysis, and it sets both accusations out in the same column, including the U.N. agency’s own condemnation of rockets hidden in its schools.
Cite this clipping
"Human rights and human shields," USA Today, 25 July 2014, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2014-005. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2014-005
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Last updated 2 November 2026
This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1724 to 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.
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