An Israeli strike on a school in Deir al-Balah killed 30 people on Saturday and an operation in Khan Younis killed 170 Palestinians in six days, sources in the Gaza Strip said on Wednesday.e months of war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to destroy Hamas after the Palestinian Islamist movement’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 sparked the war.
He has just completed a visit to the United States where he met Donald Trump, who warned of “major wars in the Middle East and perhaps a third world war” if he does not win the presidential election in November.
Despite a heavy human toll – tens of thousands dead according to the Hamas Health Ministry – and a humanitarian disaster in Gaza, the Israeli military offensive launched in response to the October 7 attack has not let up.
“The Khadija school, which housed a makeshift medical unit in the Deir al-Balah area, was targeted [par une frappe qui a] “The attack left 30 martyrs and more than 100 injured,” Hamas’ health ministry said in a statement.
The Israeli army said it had carried out an operation in the school in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, targeting the “terrorists” operating there.
Deadly operation in Khan Younis
In the south of the Palestinian territory, around 170 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds injured since the start of a new Israeli operation in Khan Younis on Monday, a spokesman for the Civil Defense, Mahmoud Bassal, told AFP.
Nearly 182,000 Palestinians have fled Khan Younis since Monday, according to the UN.
The army expanded its operations to Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza, after rockets were fired from the area toward Israel.
She called on residents of several neighborhoods in the city to evacuate to Al-Mawasi, further west, an area she calls a “humanitarian zone.” But Palestinians are afraid to go there, as the area has already been targeted by Israeli bombings.
Wounded people and bodies were taken to Nasser hospital in Khan Younis after the deadly strike, some at arm’s length, others in cars or on carts, according to AFP images.
In recent months, the army has returned to several areas of the Palestinian territory from which it had said it had driven Hamas.
On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza into southern Israel carried out an attack that killed 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data. Of the 251 people abducted during the attack, 111 are still being held in Gaza, including 39 who died, according to the army.
Its campaign of aerial and tank bombardments followed by a ground offensive has left at least 39,258 dead, according to data from the Hamas-run Gaza government’s health ministry, which does not give details on the number of civilian and combatant deaths.
Negotiations expected on Sunday
According to the UN, the Palestinian territory, where some 2.4 million inhabitants have been besieged by Israel since October 9, is threatened by famine.
“I am forced to watch my child starve to death”: Muhannad Hadi, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Middle East, spoke to the Security Council on Friday as a voice for women and children in Gaza, describing a situation that will “haunt us all” for generations. He spoke of the plight of Palestinians he met on July 9 in Deir al-Balah.
After the failure of multiple negotiations on a truce associated with the release of hostages, a meeting of representatives of the mediators – Egypt, the United States, Qatar – with the head of Israeli intelligence is planned for Sunday in Rome, according to Al-Qahera News, a media outlet close to Egyptian intelligence.
Considered a terrorist organisation by Israel, the United States and the European Union, Hamas, which took power in Gaza in 2007, accuses Mr Netanyahu of blocking any agreement.
The Hostage Families Forum, which represents relatives held in Gaza, on Thursday denounced “sabotage” of efforts to secure the release of the relatives, pointing the finger at Benjamin Netanyahu.