More than 50 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza | News on the Israel-Palestine conflict

Among the victims of an attack on the Khadija School in Deir el-Balah were 15 children and eight women.

According to Palestinian authorities, more than 50 people were killed in Israeli attacks in the center and south of the Gaza Strip. An air strike hit a school where thousands of displaced people had sought shelter.

At least 30 people were killed in an Israeli attack on the Khadija school in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Saturday.

Among those killed in the attack on the school in Deir el-Balah were 15 children and eight women, the Gaza government’s media office said, and more than 100 people were injured.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it had attacked a “Hamas command and control center on the grounds of the Khadija School in central Gaza.”

The statement said the school was being used to attack troops and as a weapons depot. It also warned civilians about the attack.

“Chaos” in the hospital

At Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah, ambulances brought wounded Palestinians to the medical facility following the Israeli military attack on Khadija School. Some of the injured also arrived on foot, their clothes stained with blood.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reported from Al-Aqsa Hospital, describing “chaos inside the hospital as doctors try to provide necessary medical care to injured Palestinians.”

“The situation is absolutely catastrophic. Everyone in the hospital has suffered life-threatening injuries. They are being treated on the ward, in all departments, and all beds are overcrowded.”

The Palestinian Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, said the “Khadija School massacre is a crime that confirms the Israeli enemy’s alienation from all human values ​​and its disregard for all laws of war.”

“We call on the international community and the United Nations to break their policy of silence and take steps to force the occupying power to stop its crimes,” it said.

According to Palestinian officials, at least 39,258 people have been killed and over 90,000 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October. Israel began the war after Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7 killed at least 1,139 people (according to an Al Jazeera count based on Israeli statistics), and about 250 people were taken prisoner.

The attack on the school on Saturday came after Israeli strikes on Khan Younis in southern Gaza killed at least 23 people, the ministry said.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported from Gaza that the attacks on Khan Younis reportedly came before leaflets with evacuation instructions were dropped, phone calls were made and text messages were sent by the Israeli military to Palestinians in the area.

About 170 people have been killed and hundreds injured in an Israeli operation in Khan Younis since Monday, the Gaza Strip’s civil defense said.

The United Nations humanitarian agency said on Friday that more than 180,000 people were displaced from the Khan Younis region between Monday and Thursday after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders on Monday for parts of the southern city, including an area previously designated as a humanitarian safe zone.

UN organizations have condemned Israel’s expulsion of Gaza’s civilian population and military attacks on areas previously declared humanitarian safe zones.