GAZA CITY, Jan 22: The United Nations urged Israel on Thursday to reopen Gaza crossings as senior officials assessed war damage and the Jewish state warned it would strike again if Hamas rearms through ‘smuggling’ tunnels.

“If you want to have reconstruction, you have to have cement and construction materials and pipes and spare parts,” said UN humanitarian chief John Holmes at a UN-run school hit by an Israeli missile in the northern town of Beit Lahiya.

“Everything has got to come in; that is one of the things we will be insisting on strongly” in discussions with Israel, said Holmes who was touring Gaza.

“It is particularly saddening and sickening to see a school destroyed like this,” said Holmes at the site of one of four UN-run schools hit by Israeli strikes.

Hamas’s chief has called on the West to lift a ban on contacts with his Islamist movement.

“Now it is time to start to talk to Hamas,” which has controlled the Gaza Strip since June 2007, the exiled Khaled Meshaal said.

Two women, two children and an elderly man were wounded on Thursday by fire from Israeli navy boats patrolling the Mediterranean, medics said. The army said it fired warning shots at a fishing boat.

Otherwise mutual Israeli and Hamas ceasefires were holding for a fifth day.

But Israel warned it would attack the territory again if Hamas uses smuggling tunnels under the Egyptian border to re-arm.

“Things must be clear – Israel reserves the right to react militarily against the tunnels once and for all,” Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said.—AFP