Palestinians displaced by Israel’s air and ground offensive in Gaza fled parts of Khan Younis on Saturday after Israeli forces ordered the evacuation of parts of the southern region of Gaza’s second-largest city.
Abdul Karim Khana/Associated Press
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Abdul Karim Khana/Associated Press
DEIR BALA, Gaza — An Israeli airstrike on a school used by displaced Palestinians in central Gaza on Saturday killed at least 30 people, including several children, as the country’s negotiators prepared to negotiate with international mediators meet to discuss the proposed ceasefire.
Among the dead were at least seven children and seven women who were taken from Deir al-Balah Girls’ School to Al-Aqsa Hospital. The Israeli military said the attack targeted a Hamas command center used to directly attack Israeli forces and develop and store “large quantities of weapons.” Hamas said in a statement that the military’s claims were false.
Gaza’s civil defense staff said thousands of people had taken refuge in schools, which also had medical points.
An Associated Press reporter saw a dead toddler covered in a blanket in an ambulance. Inside the school, walls were broken and classrooms were in ruins. People searched for victims among the rubble strewn with pillows and other signs of habitation.
Gaza’s health ministry said other attacks on Saturday killed at least 12 people.
Officials from the United States, Egypt, Qatar and Israel are scheduled to meet in Italy on Sunday to discuss ongoing ceasefire talks. According to U.S. and Egyptian officials, CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to meet with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, Mossad Director David Bania and Egyptian spy chief Abbas Kamel.
U.S. officials said on Friday that Israel and Hamas had agreed on the basic framework of a three-phase deal being considered. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed in a speech to the U.S. Congress to press ahead with the war until Israel achieves “total victory.”
Palestinian officials condemned the remarks after Israel attacked the school. Nabil Abu Rudeneh, spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement that Netanyahu’s reception by U.S. supporters gave Israel a “green light” to continue its offensive. ”.
“Every time the occupying forces bomb a school housing displaced people, we only see some condemnation and denunciation, without forcing the occupying forces to stop their bloody aggression,” he said.
New evacuation order for some humanitarian areas
The Israeli military ordered new evacuations in parts of Gaza’s designated humanitarian zone ahead of a planned attack on Khan Younis on Saturday. The order came in response to rockets that Israel said came from the area.
The military said it planned operations against Hamas militants in the city, which includes parts of Moisi.
It was the second evacuation order in a week and included the evacuation of parts of the humanitarian zone, a 60-square-kilometer (about 20-square-mile) area dotted with tent camps and lacking sanitation and medical facilities. Access to assistance is also limited. Israel expanded the area in May to accommodate people fleeing the southernmost city of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population was at the time.
Health ministry officials in Gaza say evacuation orders have forced at least three health centers to stop providing care and are compounding problems such as waste accumulation and shortages.
According to Israeli estimates, some 1.8 million Palestinians have taken refuge in the area after being repeatedly driven from their homes in harsh Israeli air and ground operations. In November, the military said the area could still be attacked and that it was “not a safe zone, but safer than anywhere else in Gaza”.
UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, said it was difficult to know how many people would be affected by the evacuation order.
“These are forced relocation orders,” said Juliette Touma, the agency’s communications director. “When people get these orders, they have very little time to move.”
Further north, Palestinians mourned the deaths of seven people killed by overnight Israeli airstrikes in Zawaida, central Gaza. Parents and their two children and a mother and her two children were wrapped in white shrouds as friends and neighbors wept.
Al-Aqsa Hospital confirmed the figure and an Associated Press reporter saw the bodies.
Deaths in the West Bank
In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said an Israeli drone strike killed a 17-year-old teenager and injured nine others in the Balata camp in Nablus. The Israeli military said one of its aircraft was attacked from the air as part of an operation in Nablus.
The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,200 Palestinians, according to the health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its statistics. The United Nations estimated in February that there were currently about 17,000 unaccompanied children in the territory, with the number likely to increase since then.
The war began when Hamas militants launched an attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 250 hostages. According to Israeli authorities, some 115 people remain in Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.
