An Israeli airstrike hits school sheltering people in Gaza, killing at least 30 people
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli airstrikes hit a school being used by displaced Palestinians in central Gaza on Saturday, killing at least 30 people, as the country’s negotiators prepared to meet international mediators to discuss a proposed cease-fire.
At least one small child was among the dead taken from the girls’ school in Deir al-Balah to Al Aqsa Hospital. Israel’s military said it targeted a Hamas command center used to direct and plan attacks against Israeli troops and develop and store “large quantities of weapons.” Hamas in a statement called the Israeli military’s claim false.
Civil defense workers in Gaza said thousands had been sheltering in the school, which also contained a medical site.
Associated Press journalists saw a dead toddler in an ambulance and bodies covered with blankets. Inside the school, shattered walls gaped and classrooms were in ruins. People searched for victims in rubble strewn with pillows and other signs of habitation.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 12 people were killed in other strikes on Saturday.
Officials from the U.S., Egypt, Qatar and Israel are scheduled to meet in Italy on Sunday to discuss ongoing cease-fire negotiations. CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to meet Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani, Mossad director David
Barnea and Egyptian spy chief Abbas Kamel, according to officials from the U.S. and Egypt who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the plans.
U.S. officials on Friday said Israel and Hamas agree on the basic framework of the three-phase deal under consideration. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his speech to the U.S. Congress vowed to press ahead with the war until Israel achieves “total victory.”
After the Israeli strike on the school, Palestinian officials condemned the speech. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesperson for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement that Netanyahu’s reception from supporters in the U.S. constituted a “green light” to continue Israel’s offensive.
“Every time the occupation bombs a school that shelters displaced persons, we see only some condemnations and denunciations that will not force the occupation to stop its bloody aggression,” he said.
Humanitarian zone evacuated
ahead of planned strikes
Israel’s military ordered the evacuation of part of a designated humanitarian zone in Gaza ahead of a planned strike on Khan Younis on Saturday. The order was in response to rocket fire that Israel said came from the area.
The military said it planned an operation against Hamas militants in the city, including parts of Muwasi, the crowded tent camp in an area where Israel has told thousands of Palestinians to seek refuge.
It’s the second evacuation order issued in a week that has included striking part of the humanitarian zone, a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) area blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid. Israel expanded the zone in May to take in people fleeing the southernmost city of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population at the time had crowded.
Gaza Health Ministry officials said the evacuation orders had forced at least three health centers to stop providing care and compounded issues such as piled-up waste and shortages of supplies.
According to Israeli estimates, about 1.8 million Palestinians currently shelter in the zone after being uprooted multiple times during Israel’s punishing air and ground campaign. In November, the military said the area could still be struck and that it was “not a safe zone, but it is a safer place than any other” in Gaza. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said it was increasingly difficult to know how many people would be affected by the evacuation order. “These are forced displacement orders,” said Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications.