Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), in a live interview with Al Jazeera Arabic, burst into tears while commenting on Israel’s fatal assault on the UN-run school in the city of Jabalia situated in the northern Gaza Strip, killing about 20 people and wounding at least 100.

“The shelling came despite 17 warnings about the position of the shelter to the Israel Defense Force (IDF) to ensure it would be spared”, Gunness, said in the interview.

"The rights of Palestinians, even their children, are wholesale denied, and it's appalling," Gunness went on to say. 

Christopher Gunness, a former BBC reporter who has also worked as a spokesman for the UN in the former Yugoslavia, had given many interviews during the Gaza conflict but this time he could not keep his composure. 

He later tweeted that he and his organization had reached breaking point.

Witnesses and UN officials said Wednesday's attack was the latest in a series of strikes on UN facilities that are supposed to be safe zones in the course of the nearly month-long Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.

More than 3300 Palestinian families were sheltering in the school after fleeing their houses during the weeks-long Israeli offensive in Gaza Strip.

NJF/NJF