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JEBALIYA REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip – Crouching against piled mattresses in a room crammed with refugees, Bissan Abu al-Eish focused on her homework, blocking out the relentless shrieks of dozens of toddlers and the stench of overflowing latrines.

"I'm so happy to be studying," said the 9-year-old girl, bent over the new textbook she received this weekend when classes resumed for 200,000 Gaza children at United Nations facilities.

Beyond being schooled by the U.N., Abu al-Eish and her seven siblings eat the agency's food, wear its clothing and now live in one of its buildings after their own house was leveled during Israeli bombardments on Gaza.

Hamas may be politically in charge of the Gaza Strip, but it's to the U.N.'s relief agency that the majority of the 1.4 million Gazans turn for health care, garbage collection, food assistance and just about every other service usually provided by a state.

With much of the territory devastated by Israel's latest military offensive, the agency's job is bound to get even bigger.

Many expect the U.N.'s agency for Palestinians to take the lead in reconstruction, though its role is currently limited to the refugee camps that house more than 1 million of Gaza's population. The U.N. spearheading efforts to rebuild Gaza could open a door to international donors, many of whom don't want to give Hamas money because the group doesn't recognize Israel and is considered a terror organization by the U.S. and European Union.

It is estimated that $2 billion is needed to repair the 21,000 homes damaged or destroyed, along with factories and government buildings, in the three-week Israeli attack to end Hamas' rocket-firing. Fundraising has hardly begun, and the question of how the money will be funneled remains unanswered.

"We're delivering the services of a state, until the state is established," John Ging, the head of Gaza operations for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, told The Associated Press this weekend.

At the same time, it must exist side-by-side with Hamas' government — and take care to maintain its neutrality, which some Israelis question.

In one classroom Saturday, when UNRWA schools reopened, a Palestinian teacher was filmed asking children about their trauma during the war. The unidentified teacher then told the children that Palestinians have to "wage war against them (Israelis) until they leave their land," and asked her students, aged about 8, how they should react.

Two children in the class suggested hurling stones or rockets back at Israel. "Okay," the teacher said, apparently summing up her class' position. "We throw rockets at them, we throw stones at them," she said.

Ging said such behavior is "completely unacceptable," and will be "dealt with in the most severest of fashions." He said the teacher would likely be removed once identified. Teachers have been fired from UNRWA in the past for incitement.

Ging said that following the latest war, which ended Jan. 17, UNRWA briefed teachers — themselves often victims of the fighting — on how to channel the children's grief away from revenge and violence. In schools across the territory, teachers led students in games to ease their trauma and encouraged them to talk about lost classmates to deal with their deaths.

"We're in a battle with extremism here in Gaza," said Ging, adding that UNRWA schools aim to "guide (children) to a civilized place."

Robert Blecher, the senior Middle-East analyst for the Washington-based International Crisis Group think-tank, says UNRWA's staff comes from a cross-section of society and it's "logical that this staff reflects the political spectrum of Gaza, of which Hamas is obviously an important component."

"But I've never seen any evidence of bias towards Hamas in any UNRWA actions or distributions," he said.

The 60-year-old agency has been in Gaza so long, and its institutions are so deeply entrenched, that it has been able to conduct its operations with little contact with the local government for years — even before Hamas came to power.

Israeli officials have in the past been critical of some aspects of UNRWA's operations, especially in the field of education, pointing to anti-Israeli content in past textbooks. The books have since been replaced, and 2003 and 2004 studies commissioned by the U.S. State Department found that the texts did not contain material promoting hatred of Israel.

Hamas praises UNRWA for providing Gazans what it can't. "We hugely appreciate their great efforts to help our people," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told AP.

UNRWA was created in 1949 to take care of Palestinian refugees and operates in camps across the Middle East. In Gaza, it has some 17,000 permanent or temporary staff. It has a budget of $350 million and provides services — including food distribution — in the camps. Many non-refugees also benefit, sending their children to its schools.

The organization is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions from countries, its largest donors include the United States, the European Union, Sweden and Britain. Louis Michel, the European Union's humanitarian chief, said the EU is by far the largest overall donor to the Palestinians.

Ging says UNRWA is able to take on the daunting task of rebuilding Gaza refugee camps. But, he says, this will only be possible if Israel allows the blockaded territory to receive enough of the humanitarian aid already piling up at its border.

Israeli Cabinet Minister Isaac Herzog said Israel is adequately opening the crossings.

"Humanitarian aid is entering Gaza at a rate of 150 trucks a day, which is the maximum amount of aid that the Palestinians can absorb at this time," Herzog, who oversees what is allowed into the territory, told AP on Monday. Israel and Egypt have largely sealed their crossings into Gaza since Hamas took over the territory in 2007.

The American Near East Refugee Aid said it has delivered more than $2.5 million of food and medical supplies. On Monday, Michel announced euro58 million ($74 million) in emergency aid for Palestinians affected by the conflict, but insisted the money wouldn't go through the Hamas government.

"Hamas is a terrorist movement," he told reporters while standing in front of a food warehouse at UNRWA's main compound, funded by the EU and largely destroyed by Israeli shelling.

This leaves UNRWA to provide most emergency aid — and puts it in a key position when funding starts coming in for rebuilding.

How fast the border could open, however, remains unclear. Israel says any agreement to fully open Gaza's borders must include guarantees Hamas will be prevented from smuggling new weapons in.

Bissan Abu al-Eish seemed far from such concerns.

"I'm worried about all these new words," the little girl said, skimming through her new Arabic textbook in the U.N. youth community center where she now lives, crammed with 42 other families from Jebaliya refugee camp.

Thousands took refuge in UNRWA schools during the war. Most have since left. But Nofal Abu al-Eish, Bissan's father, said his family of 10 had nowhere to go since their house was destroyed. The $150 given by UNRWA to refugees to relocate in rentals aren't enough, he said.

GAZA CITY, Gaza – France and Egypt announced an initiative to stop the fighting in Gaza late Tuesday, hours after Israeli mortar shells exploded near a U.N. school sheltering hundreds of people displaced by the onslaught on Hamas militants. At least 30 Palestinians died, staining streets with blood.

AP – Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a street near a U.N. school, after an Israeli

The Egyptian and French presidents didn't release details of their proposal, saying only that it involved an immediate cease-fire to permit humanitarian aid into Gaza and talks to settle the differences between Israel and the Islamic militants of Hamas who rule the small coastal territory.

They said they were awaiting a response from Israel. Israeli officials in Jerusalem declined immediate comment on the announcement, which came amid diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and other nations to resolve a conflict that has seen 600 people killed in 11 days.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice weclomed the initiative, but cautioned that no agreement would succeed unless it halted Hamas rocket attacks on Israel and arms smuggling into Gaza.

Earlier in the day, President-elect Barack Obama broke his silence on the crisis, saying that "the loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern for me." He declined to go further, reiterating his stance that the U.S. has only one president at a time.

Israel's military said its shelling at the school — the deadliest single episode since Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza on Saturday after a week of air bombardment — was a response to mortar fire from within the school and said Hamas militants were using civilians as cover.

Two residents of the area who spoke with The Associated Press by telephone said they saw a small group of militants firing mortar rounds from a street near the school, where 350 people had gathered to get away from the shelling. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Majed Hamdan, an AP photographer, rushed to the scene shortly after the attacks. At the hospital, he said, many children were among the dead.

"I saw women and men — parents — slapping their faces in grief, screaming, some of them collapsed to the floor. They knew their children were dead," he said. "In the morgue, most of the killed appeared to be children. In the hospital, there wasn't enough space for the wounded."

He said there appeared to be marks on the pavement of five separate explosions in area of the school.

An Israeli defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to make the information public, said it appeared the military used 120-mm shells, among the largest mortar rounds.

U.N. officials demanded an investigation of the shelling. The carnage, which included 55 wounded, added to a surging civilian toll and drew mounting international pressure for Israel to end the offensive against Hamas.

At a news conference in Sharm-el-Sheik, Egypt, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said the truce proposal offered by him and French President Sarkozy envisioned an immediate end to combat, so humanitarian supplies can safely enter Gaza.

Mubarak said the plan also calls for an urgent meeting between Israel and the Palestinians to discuss ways to resolve the conflict and provide necessary guarantees to ensure fighting doesn't erupt again.

There was no indication of the plan's chances. Sarkozy said at the news conference that he saw it as a "small hope" for ending the Gaza violence.

Sarkozy said he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to inform him of the initiaitve and was awaiting a response.

He said Mubarak invited Israel "to come discuss the question of border security ... (and) that could be in the hours ahead."

In Jerusalem, Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, told AP: "We are holding off comments on that for the time being."

At U.N. headquarters, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the proposal. "I express my support for the plan set in motion today by President Mubarak and President Sarkozy," said Abbas, who was in New York for a Security Council meeting on the Gaza crisis.

Israeli officials have said any cease-fire agreement must prevent further rocket attacks by Gaza militants and put in place measures to prevent the smuggling of missile and other weapons into the small Palestinian territory.

Rice told the Security Council meeting that the U.S. understood the growing desire for a cease-fire. "In this regard, we are pleased by, and wish to commend, the statement of the president of Egypt and to follow up on that initiative," she said.

But Rice added that any solution must address Israel's security.

"There must be a solution this time that does not allow Hamas to use Gaza as a launching pad against Israeli cities. It has to be a solution that does not allow the rearmament of Hamas, and it must be a solution that finds a way to open (border) crossings so that Palestinians in Gaza can have a normal life," she said.

In the wake of the criticism over civilian casualties, Israel agreed to set up a "humanitarian corridor" to ship vital supplies into the Gaza Strip. Under the plan, put forward by the Israeli Defense Ministry, Israel would suspend attacks in certain areas to allow people to get supplies.

At U.N. headquarters, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the Israeli bombardment of U.N. facilities in Gaza "totally unacceptable." Israel's shells have fallen around three schools, including the girls school hit Tuesday, and a health center for Palestinian refugees.

Ban added that it was "equally unacceptable" for militants to take actions that endanger Palestinian civilians, referring to the practice of militants making attacks from residential areas.

Some 15,000 Palestinians have packed the U.N.'s 23 Gaza schools because their homes were destroyed or to flee the violence. The U.N. provided the Israeli military with GPS coordinates for all of them.

The three mortar shells that crashed down on the perimeter of the U.N. school struck at midafternoon, when many people in the densely populated camp were outside getting some fresh air, thinking an area around a school was safe.

Images recorded by a cameraman from AP Television News showed crowds fleeing the scene, pavements smeared with blood and battered bodies being carried off by medics and bystanders. A youth who limped away was helped along by several others. Sandals lay scattered on the pavement by a pock-marked wall.

"There's nowhere safe in Gaza. Everyone here is terrorized and traumatized," said John Ging, head of Gaza operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

An Israeli military statement said it received intelligence that the dead at the girls school included Hamas operatives, among them members of a rocket-launching squad. It identified two of them as Imad Abu Askar and Hassan Abu Askar.

Two residents who spoke to an AP reporter by phone said the two brothers were known to be low-level Hamas militants. They said a group of militants — one of them said four — were firing mortar shells from near the school.

An Israeli shell targeted the men, but missed and they fled, the witnesses said. Then another three shells landed nearby, exploding among civilians, they said, refusing to allow their names to be published because they feared for their safety.

A total of 71 Palestinians were killed Tuesday — with just two confirmed as militants, Gaza health officials said.

An Israeli infant was wounded by one of about two dozen rockets fired into southern Israel by Gaza militants.

Eleven Israelis have been killed since the offensive began: three civilians and a soldier by rocket fire and seven soldiers in the ground offensive, according to Isaeli officials.