At least 30 dead in Gaza after Israeli airstrike on school used as emergency shelter: NPR

Palestinians displaced by Israel’s air and ground offensive against the Gaza Strip fled parts of Khan Younis on Saturday after the Israeli army issued an evacuation order for parts of the southern area of ​​Gaza’s second-largest city.

Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

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Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip – Israeli airstrikes 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 proposed ceasefire.

Among the dead, taken from the girls’ school in Deir al-Balah to Al-Aqsa Hospital, were at least seven children and seven women. The Israeli military said it had attacked a Hamas command center used for attacks against Israeli troops and the development and storage of “large quantities of weapons.” In a statement, Hamas called the military’s claim false.

Civil defense officials in the Gaza Strip said thousands had sought shelter in the school, which also houses a medical facility.

Associated Press journalists saw a dead toddler in an ambulance and bodies covered with blankets. Inside the school, shattered walls and classrooms lay in ruins. People searched for victims in the rubble, which was littered with pillows and other signs of habitation.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 12 people were killed in further attacks on Saturday.

Officials from the United States, Egypt, Qatar and Israel will meet in Italy on Sunday to discuss ongoing ceasefire talks. CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to meet with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman 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 agreed on the basic framework of the three-stage deal, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed in his speech to the US Congress to continue the war until Israel achieved “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 by supporters in the United States meant a “green light” for the continuation of the Israeli offensive.

“Every time the occupation bombs a school housing displaced people, all we get is some condemnation and denunciation, but this does not force the occupation to stop its bloody aggression,” he said.

New evacuation order for part of the humanitarian zone

Israel’s military has ordered a new evacuation of part of a designated humanitarian zone in Gaza ahead of a planned attack on Khan Younis on Saturday. The order came in response to rocket fire that Israel said came from the area.

The military said it was planning an operation against Hamas fighters in the city and parts of Muwasi, a crowded tent camp in an area where Israel has asked thousands of Palestinians to seek refuge.

It is the second evacuation order in a week that also affects part of the humanitarian zone, a 60-square-kilometer area filled with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical care and have limited access to aid. Israel expanded the zone in May to accommodate people fleeing the southernmost city of Rafah, which at the time was home to more than half of Gaza’s population.

Gaza Health Ministry officials said the evacuation orders had forced at least three health centers to suspend services and exacerbated problems such as piles of garbage and supply shortages.

According to Israeli estimates, some 1.8 million Palestinians have sought refuge in the zone after being displaced several times during Israel’s devastating air and ground attacks. In November, the military said the area could still be attacked and that it was “not a safe zone, but a safer place than any other” in Gaza.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said it was difficult to estimate 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 have such orders, they have very little time to move away.”

Further north, Palestinians mourned the deaths of seven people killed overnight by 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 count and AP journalists saw the bodies.

One death in the West Bank

In the occupied West Bank, a 17-year-old was killed and nine others injured after an Israeli drone attacked the Balata camp in Nablus, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli military said one of its aircraft carried out an aerial attack as part of its activities in Nablus.

According to the Health Ministry, more than 39,200 Palestinians have died in the war in Gaza, although the count does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. The UN estimated in February that there were currently about 17,000 unaccompanied children in the area, and the number is likely to have risen since then.

The war began with an attack by Hamas militias on southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking about 250 hostages. About 115 of them are still in Gaza, and about a third of them are believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.