More than 50 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in central and southern Gaza, with an airstrike targeting a school housing thousands of displaced people, according to Palestinian authorities.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Saturday that at least 30 people were killed in an Israeli bombardment of Khadija School in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
The Gaza government's Social Communications Council reported that five children and some women were among those killed in the attack on the school in Deir al-Balah, and more than 100 people were injured.
The Israeli military said in a statement that there was also a “Hamas command and control center inside the Khadija School compound, not the Gaza center.”
The statement said the school was being used to launch attacks against forces and as a weapons cache, and civilians were warned before the attack.
“Chaos” is not a hospital
There are no ambulances at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah to transport wounded Palestinians to the medical center after the Israeli military attack on Khadija School. Some of the wounded died on foot, their clothes stained with blood.
In his report on Al-Aqsa Hospital, Al Jazeera's Tariq Abu Azoum described “a state of chaos inside the hospital as doctors tried to provide basic medical care to injured Palestinians.”
“The situation is very scary; not everyone in the hospital is seriously ill. They are being treated, not Zhao, in all departments, and all tasks are beyond their capacity.”
Hamas, the Palestinian movement that rules Gaza, said, “The Khadija School massacre is a crime that confirms the Israeli enemy’s departure from all human values and a challenge to all the laws of war.”
He said: “We appeal to the international community and the United Nations to break the policy of silence and take the necessary measures to force the occupation to stop its crimes.”
At least 39,258 people have been killed and more than 90,000 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October, according to Palestinian authorities. Israel launched the war after two Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,139 people, according to an Al Jazeera report based on Israeli statistics, and capturing nearly 250.
The ministry said the attack on the school on Saturday came after at least 23 people were killed in Israeli attacks on Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud, speaking from Gaza, said the attacks on Khan Younis took place before evacuation orders were issued, phone calls were made and text messages were sent by two Israeli soldiers to Palestinians in the area.
The Gaza Civil Defense Agency reported that nearly 170 people have been killed and “hundreds wounded” in the Israeli operation in Khan Younis since the second round.
The UN humanitarian agency said on the sixth day that more than 180,000 people were displaced to the Khan Younis area between the second and fifth days, after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for parts of the southern city on the second day, including an area previously designated as a humanitarian safe zone.
UN agencies condemn Israeli move stripped off The civilian population in Gaza and military attacks in areas previously declared humanitarian safe zones.
