Gaza - Patients and staff at the al-Quds hospital in the Gaza Strip were still under gunfire Thursday afternoon, hours after a shell hit the building causing a large fire.

"We are a civilian hospital and we are under siege," said Regis Garrigue, a doctor from France who was volunteering at the hospital, which was marked with Red Crescent flags.

Fire brigades, escorting by the International Red Cross in coordination with the Israeli military, were after a few hours able to extinguish the fire, which ravaged one wing of the hospital.

Jerusalem - International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) President Jakob Kellenberger described the large number of wounded people in Gaza and the severity of their injuries as "shocking" Wednesday.

"It hurts, when you see those wounded people, and the type of wounds they have," Kellenberger told a news conference in Jerusalem.

He reminded all parties of their obligation under international law to allow aid and rescue workers unhindered access to injured and suffering civilians.

Jerusalem, Jan. 14 : An army lieutenant has said that Israel is treating everything as hostile right now, and not taking any chances as far as dealing with the Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Lieutenant Alon said that Israeli troops have been told to ruthlessly shoot rather than ask questions.

Jerusalem - The Israeli military denied on Saturday that its forces fired on a United Nations convoy days earlier.

"We are 100 per cent certain we did not fire upon the truck," a spokesman for the Israeli military said.

Israeli military sources went further, saying they were fairly certain Hamas had been the source of the fire.

In the incident Thursday, the UN said two of its local employees were killed trying to bring humanitarian supplies from the northern Erez border crossing into the enclave.

Gaza - Eight Palestinians were killed Saturday when an Israeli tank shell landed on a house in the Gaza Strip, witnesses and medics said.

The eight were apparently members of one family.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment but a spokesman said the incident, which took place in the town of Jabalia near Gaza City, was being looked into.

The tank shell landed shortly after Palestinian militants fired three rockets at the Israeli town of Ashkelon, lightly injuring one person.

Cairo - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met in Cairo Saturday with Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak as part of diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip after 15 days of Israeli attacks which have left over 800 dead and thousands wounded.

Abbas expressed his strong backing for the Egyptian-French initiative of last week calling for a cessation of violence, allowing aid to reach civilians, and for the Israelis and Palestinians to take steps to make sure another conflict does not erupt, including the possibility of international peacekeeping forces.