GAZA CITY: The United Nations relief agency yesterday stopped work in the Gaza Strip after two of its workers were killed in Israeli fire.

The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said a UN convoy was hit by Israeli tank shells, killing the two forklift operators. UNRWA distributes food to about half of Gaza’s 1.5 million population.

“Operations will remain suspended until Israeli authorities can guarantee the safety and security of our staff,” UNRWA spokesman Christopher Gunness said.

UN spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna said the UN coordinated the delivery with Israel and the vehicles were marked with UN flags and insignia when they were shot at in northern Gaza.

Israel also came under severe criticism from the Red Cross, which said the Jewish state was delaying access to casualties as the death toll in the 13-day war rose to over 700. Relief workers found four starving children sitting next to their dead mothers and other corpses in a house in a part of Gaza City bombed by Israeli forces, the International Committee of the Red Cross said. The ICRC accused Israel of delaying ambulance access to the bombed area and demanded it grant safe access for Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances to return to evacuate more wounded.

“They (the children) were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all, there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses,” the ICRC said.

In another house, the team found 15 survivors of Israeli shelling including several wounded. Israeli soldiers, posted some 80 meters away, ordered the rescue team to leave the area, which they refused to do, it said.

“These are shocking incidents,” said Pierre Wettach, ICRC chief for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. In unusually strong terms, the agency said it believed Israel had breached international humanitarian law in the Gaza Strip.

The death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza rose to 763 yesterday after new raids and dozens of bodies were found during a suspension in Israel’s bombing, medics said.

About 20 people, among them many women and children, were killed in new raids by the Israeli military, said Mouawiya Hassanein, head of Gaza’s emergency services.

Rescuers also found many bodies in debris while searching during the three-hour suspension in hostilities across Gaza between 1100 GMT and 1400 GMT, he said. Hassanein said the toll went up dramatically after the discovery of “many bodies in zones that we could not get to before,” especially around Jabaliya and Atatra in the north and Zeitoun in Gaza City.

As Israel went ahead with the bloody offensive in Gaza, Palestinian sympathizers in Lebanon fired at least three rockets into Israel early yesterday. Israel responded with mortar shells.

No group claimed responsibility. Lebanon’s government condemned the attack, and Hezbollah, which plays an integral role in Lebanon’s government, denied any responsibility for the rocket fire, which lightly injured two Israelis who were hurt when a projectile crashed into a nursing home.

“Hezbollah is not aware of the rocket attack,” Labor Minister Mohammed Fneish said. “Everyone knows that Hezbollah does not shy away from claiming responsibility for its actions.” Fneish is the sole Hezbollah representative in Lebanon’s 30-member national unity government.

While the UN Security Council failed to reach agreement on a cease-fire resolution, Egypt’s UN Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz said representatives of Israel, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority agreed to meet separately with Egyptian officials in Cairo. Israeli envoys traveled to Egypt yesterday to discuss the proposal.

Egypt on Wednesday detailed its plan to a Hamas delegation that flew in from exile in Syria, but Palestinian groups including Hamas, said the Egyptian plan “has no valid basis.”

At the United Nations, Britain, France and the United States presented a draft Security Council resolution to Arab foreign ministers calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. But Arab ministers indicated they were determined to push for a UN Security Council vote on their own revised draft resolution demanding an immediate and permanent cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.

— With input from agencies