The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said an Israeli strike on a school killed 30 people on Saturday, after a days-long military operation further south killed around 170, according to emergency services.
The latest strike, which Israel said targeted “terrorists”, was at least the eighth time since July 6 a school has been hit, leaving a total of more than 100 people dead, based on figures given by the health ministry and a hospital source.
With most of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people displaced at least once during the war started by Hamas’s October 7 attack, many have sought refuge in school buildings including the one hit on Saturday.
The health ministry reported “30 martyrs and more than 100 wounded” in the strike on Khadija school in the central Deir el-Balah area.
Israel’s military said Palestinian militants were using the compound as a “hiding place”.
Further south, in the Khan Yunis city area, around 170 people have been killed “and hundreds wounded” in an Israeli operation since Monday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said.
It issued the toll after the military warned of new operations in the Khan Yunis area, where troops had earlier recovered the bodies of five Israelis killed during the October 7 attack and held in Gaza since.
Fears of a broader regional conflict again soared on Saturday with deadly exchanges between Lebanese Hamas ally Hezbollah and Israeli forces, which have traded cross-border fire since early October.
A rocket attack blamed on Hezbollah killed at least 11 people, including children, in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, medics said.
Hezbollah, which has denied responsibility for the strike on the town of Majdal Shams, earlier claimed several attacks on Israeli military sites after an air raid on southern Lebanon killed four of its fighters.
Aid effort ‘destabilised’
In Gaza, Israel had warned on Monday that its forces would “forcefully operate” in the Khan Yunis area. On Wednesday the military said troops retrieved the five bodies.
On Saturday, the military ordered residents from more parts of Khan Yunis “to temporarily evacuate to the adjusted humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi” — the second such change to the declared safe zone within a week.
The United Nations said that by Thursday, more than 180,000 Palestinians had already fled fierce fighting there.
Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defence agency, told AFP that many people had been displaced again on Saturday as the Israeli operation continued.
But with large parts of Khan Yunis “not suitable for living” and “no other options available”, civilians have struggled to find safety, he said.
“Where will these residents go?”
The evacuation orders and “intensified hostilities” have “significantly destabilised aid operations”, the UN said, reporting “dire water, hygiene and sanitation conditions” in the Palestinian territory.
Khan Yunis was left devastated after heavy fighting early in the year but the military withdrew in April.
Now it has returned in force. Israel said on Friday that its forces had “eliminated approximately 100” militants in Khan Yunis during the week.
‘End this madness’
The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,258 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not provide details of civilian and militant deaths.
Egyptian state-linked media said Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators are to meet with Israeli negotiators in the latest push for a Gaza truce, which critics of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have accused him of blocking.
The latest mediation efforts have focused on a ceasefire and hostage release accompanied by increased aid flows into besieged Gaza and the freeing of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Al-Qahera News, which has links to Egyptian intelligence, reported on Friday that talks “to reach agreement on a truce in Gaza” would take place in Rome on Sunday. US media outlet Axios separately reported that CIA Director Bill Burns was expected to attend.
In a meeting in Washington on Thursday, US President Joe Biden called on Netanyahu to “finalise” a deal, the White House said.
Israeli protesters rallied on Saturday in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, urging their government to secure an agreement to free the remaining hostages.
In comments on social media platform X after the Deir al-Balah strike, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said a “ceasefire must happen now”.
He deplored “yet another attack on a school used as a shelter” as “an already very fragile population is asked to relocate again and again”.
“Only a political solution will end this madness”.
AFP
