DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli airstrikes hit a school used by displaced Palestinians in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing at least 30 people, including many children, as Israeli negotiators prepared to meet international mediators on a proposed cease-fire.
Among the dead were seven children and seven women who were taken from the girls’ school in Deir al-Balah to al-Aqsa hospital. The Israeli military said it targeted a Hamas command center used to direct attacks against Israeli forces and store “large quantities of weapons.” Hamas called the military’s claim false.
Civil defense workers in Gaza said thousands of people were sheltering in the school, which also housed a medical center. Associated Press journalists saw a dead child in an ambulance and bodies covered in blankets. Walls were smashed and classrooms destroyed. People sifted through the rubble, littered with pillows and other signs of habitation.
The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 12 people were killed in other strikes on Saturday.
Associated Press correspondent Charles de Ledesma reported that Israel has ordered more evacuations in Gaza.
Officials from the United States, Egypt, Qatar and Israel are scheduled to meet in Italy on Sunday to discuss cease-fire negotiations. CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to meet with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Mossad Director David Barnea and Egyptian Intelligence Chief Abbas Kamel, according to U.S. and Egyptian officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plans.
US officials said on Friday that Israel and Hamas had agreed on the basic framework for a three-stage deal. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in his speech that Israel and Hamas had agreed on the basic framework for a three-stage deal. Speech before the US Congress He vowed to continue the war until “complete victory.”
After the Israeli raid on the school, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said that Netanyahu’s reception by his supporters in the United States constituted a “green light” to continue the Israeli attack.
a Deadly new shootout The military escalation between the Israeli army and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon has renewed fears that the war in Gaza could ignite a wider regional conflict.
New evacuation order for part of humanitarian zone
The Israeli military on Saturday ordered the evacuation of part of a designated humanitarian zone in Gaza ahead of a planned attack on Khan Younis in the south. The order came in response to rocket fire that Israel said came from the area.
The army said it was planning to Operation against Hamas Militants, including in parts of Mawasi, a crowded camp in an area where Israel has asked thousands of Palestinians to take refuge. Second eviction order issued within a week.
The area is 60 square kilometres (about 20 square miles). covered with tent camps The camps lack health and medical facilities, and access to aid is limited. Israel expanded the area last May to accommodate people fleeing the southernmost city of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population was crowded at the time.
“This is the ninth or eighth time I have been displaced,” said Mohammed Jaber, originally from Rafah. “Every time they tell us to go to an unsafe area. This time we don’t know where to go.” He wiped the sweat from his face as children piled neat bundles of belongings on the sand, ready to be transported by car or donkey cart.
Evacuation orders have forced at least three health centers to stop providing care, Gaza health ministry officials said.
Israel estimates that about 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering in the area. In November, the Israeli military said the area remained vulnerable to shelling and was “not a safe area, but safer than any other place” in Gaza.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said it was difficult to know how many people would be affected by the latest order. “These are forced displacement orders,” said Juliette Touma, the agency’s communications director, adding that Palestinians “have very little time to act.”
Farther north, Palestinians mourned seven people killed in overnight Israeli airstrikes on Zawaida in 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 toll and Associated Press journalists saw the bodies.
Two deaths in the West Bank
In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a 17-year-old and a 24-year-old were killed and 22 others wounded after an Israeli drone strike in the Balata camp in Nablus.
The Israeli military said an aircraft attacked from the air as part of its activities in Nablus. It added that “terrorists” opened fire on a military post and a soldier was lightly wounded.
The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,200 Palestinians, according to Israeli statistics. Ministry of HealthWhich does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The United Nations estimated in February that about 17,000 people had been killed in the conflict. Children in the area are now unaccompanied.The number has likely increased since then.
The war began with Attack by Hamas militants On October 7, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) launched an attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 115 hostages remain in Gaza, and about a third of them are believed to have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.
On Saturday evening, Israelis again held an anti-government demonstration in Tel Aviv to demand a ceasefire and the return of the remaining hostages. “There is an agreement on the table and we need to make it happen, and we need to make it happen now,” said one of the demonstrators, Tamer Goitsabri.
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Metz reported from Rabat, Morocco, with additional contributions from Associated Press writer Amer Madhani in Washington.
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Learn more about AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
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