Hamas says it is targeting an agreement to end the war.
Gaza:
Palestinians said an Israeli attack on Saturday killed at least 22 people at a school housing displaced people in southern Gaza City, while the Israeli military said the attack targeted a Hamas command center.
Gaza’s health ministry said most of the dead were women and children. The Hamas-run government media agency said 13 children and six women were among the dead.
The military said it had struck a Hamas command center embedded in the compound that previously served as a school, repeating accusations that the group is using civilian facilities for military purposes. Hamas denies that.
Reuters footage from the site showed broken walls, destroyed and burnt furniture and holes in the ceiling of a room as people tried to salvage what they could of belongings.
“The women and their children were sitting on the school playground, the children were playing, and suddenly two rockets hit them,” said a witness Said Al-Malahi.
Some of the dead were wrapped in blankets and transported on donkey carts, while ambulances transported other bodies.
“I couldn’t handle it, I didn’t see a single man injured, it was all women and children, let the Arab countries rejoice, let them cheer and clap for (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and the United States of America. ” America,” said another eyewitness, Ahmed Azzam, exasperated by the fact that the region’s neighbors did not take a tougher stance against Israel.
MEDICINE KILLED
In Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, the Gaza Health Ministry said four health workers were killed by an Israeli strike that hit ministry warehouses. Paramedics were unable to reach the dead or treat the injured, it added.
In a statement, the Israeli military said troops, operating in Rafah since May, have killed dozens of police officers and dismantled military infrastructure and tunnel shafts in recent weeks.
Israel’s demand to maintain control of the southern border line between Rafah and Egypt has been a major sticking point in international efforts to broker a ceasefire.
Hamas says it is focusing on an agreement to end the war and get Israeli troops out of Gaza, while Israel says the war cannot end until Hamas is eradicated. Another sticking point is the specifics of the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
This war in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was sparked on October 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Israel’s subsequent attack on the enclave killed more than 41,000 Palestinians and displaced almost all of its 2.3 million residents, according to the local health ministry.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)