Palestinians displaced by Israeli air and ground attacks in the Gaza Strip fled the Khan Younis section on Friday, following an evacuation order by the Israeli army to leave the southern part of the Gaza Strip’s second largest city.
Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
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Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip – An Israeli airstrike hit a school used by displaced Palestinians in central Gaza on Saturday, killing at least 30 people including several children, as the country’s negotiators prepared to meet with international mediators to discuss a ceasefire proposed.
At least seven children and seven women who died were taken from a girls’ school in Deir al-Balah to Al Aqsa Hospital. Israel’s military said it targeted a Hamas command center used to direct attacks against Israeli forces and to develop and store “massive weapons.” Hamas in a statement called the military’s claims false.
Civil defense workers in Gaza said thousands had taken refuge in the school, which also houses a medical site.
An Associated Press reporter saw a dead toddler in an ambulance and a body covered in a blanket. Inside the school, the walls collapsed and the classrooms were in ruins. People search for victims in the rubble scattered by pillows and other signs of the place.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 12 people were killed in another attack on Saturday.
Officials from the US, Egypt, Qatar and Israel are scheduled to meet in Italy on Sunday to discuss ceasefire negotiations. CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to meet with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani, Mossad director David Barnea and Egyptian spy chief Abbas Kamel, according to US and Egyptian officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to do so. discuss plans.
US officials on Friday said Israel and Hamas agreed on the basic framework of a three-phase deal under consideration. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a speech to the US Congress vowed to continue the war until Israel achieves “total victory.”
After the Israeli attack on the school, Palestinian officials condemned the speech. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement that Netanyahu’s reception of supporters in the US was a “green light” to continue the Israeli attack.
“Every time the occupation bombs schools that shelter displaced people, we see only a few condemnations and denunciations that will not force the occupation to stop its bloody aggression,” he said.
New evacuation order for part of the humanitarian zone
The Israeli military ordered a new evacuation of parts of the designated humanitarian zone in Gaza ahead of the planned attack on Khan Younis on Saturday. The order was in response to rockets that Israel said were fired from the area.
The military said it was planning an operation against Hamas militants in the city, including the Muwasi section, a crowded encampment in an area where Israel has told thousands of Palestinians to seek refuge.
It was the second evacuation order issued in a week covering part of the humanitarian zone, an area of ​​60 square kilometers (about 20 square miles) covered by tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid. . Israel expanded the zone in May to take in people fleeing the southernmost city of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population at the time was already crowded.
Gaza Health Ministry officials said the evacuation order has forced at least three health centers to stop providing treatment and complex problems such as piles of garbage and shortages of supplies.
According to Israeli estimates, some 1.8 million Palestinians have fled the zone after being uprooted several times during Israeli air and ground campaigns. In November, the military said the area was still vulnerable to attack and “is not a safe zone, but it is a safer place than any other” in Gaza.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said it was difficult to know how many people would be affected by the evacuation order.
“This is a forced move order,” said Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications.
In the north, Palestinians mourned the seven killed by Israeli airstrikes overnight in Zawaida, in central Gaza. An old man and two children and a mother and two children were wrapped in white shrouds as friends and neighbors wept.
Al Aqsa Hospital confirmed the number and an AP reporter saw the bodies.
Death on the West Coast
In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said a 17-year-old boy was killed and nine others wounded after an Israeli drone attack on the Balata camp in Nablus. The Israeli military said one of the planes struck from the air as part of an operation in Nablus.
The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,200 Palestinians, according to the Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in the number. The UN estimated in February that around 17,000 children in the region were currently unaccompanied, and that number was likely to rise.
The war began with an attack by Hamas militants in southern Israel on October 7 that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 115 remain in Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.
