The Ministry of Health, which runs Hamas, said at least 27 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike at a school in northern Gaza that provides shelter for displaced families.
Dar al-Arqam school in Tuffah district in northeastern Gaza was injured when a local hospital was attacked.
The Israeli military said it hit the city’s “outstanding terrorists at the Hamas Command and Control Center” but did not mention the school.
The Ministry of Health reported earlier that 97 more people in the Israeli attacks had been killed in the past 24 hours, and Israel said its ground offensive was expanding to occupy much of the Palestinian territory.
Hamas Gaza – A spokesman for the civil defense agency Mahmoud Bassal said children and women were the dead after the Dar al-Arqam school strike.
He also said a woman who was pregnant with twins disappeared along with her husband, sister and three children.
Video from nearby Al-Ahli Hospital shows children being taken there by severely injured cars and trucks.
A statement from the IDF said the ruins of Gaza City attacked Hamas fighters had used to plan attacks on Israeli civilians and troops.
It added that many steps have been taken to mitigate harm to civilians.
Civil Defense said at least 12 people were killed overnight when several houses in the Charya area of eastern Gaza were attacked.
It released a video that appeared to show the bodies of two young children pulled out of the remains of the collapsed building.
An eyewitness who asked not to be named told the BBC that Gaza Lifeline Plan in Arabic when he was “suddenly shaken by a violent explosion and found it happened at our neighbor’s house, Ayyad family”.
The IDF did not comment immediately, but on Thursday morning it ordered Shejaiya residents and four neighboring areas to evacuate immediately to the city of West Gaza, warning that it “does its best to … destroy the terrorist infrastructure.”
An explosion near Dar al-Arqam school puts first responders and residents campaign cover [AFP]
According to the United Nations, the UN issued similar evacuation orders this week for several areas of Northern Gaza and throughout the southern Rafa and parts of neighboring Khan Yunis, prompting about 100,000 Palestinians to flee the UN.
Israel carried out an air bombing and ground offensive in Gaza on March 18 after a ceasefire and hostage release agreement agreed with Hamas in January and ended negotiations in the second phase of the deal.
IDF chief spokesman Brig-Gen Effie DeFrin said in a briefing Thursday that operations in recent days have “developed to another stage.”
“We have expanded operations in the southern Gaza Strip with the goal of surrounding and dividing the Rafa region,” he said. “In northern Gaza, our forces are targeting terrorist targets, clearing the area, and tearing down the terrorist infrastructure.”
He added that over the past two weeks, Israeli forces have attacked more than 600 “terrorist targets” in the Gaza region and “eliminated more than 250 terrorists.”
Gaza’s Ministry of Health said at least 1,163 people were killed during the same period. United Nations agencies said they included more than 300 children.
After the Israeli military ordered them to evacuate on Thursday, residents of Chayeya began to flee to the west of Gaza. [Reuters]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday night that Israeli forces are building another military corridor that will cut Rafa from Khan Younis.
He believes military pressure will force Hamas to release its remaining 59 hostages, with as many as 24 of them considered alive.
But Hamas said it would not interact with Israel’s latest proposal for a new ceasefire, which is said to be in coordination with the United States, one of the mediators in the negotiations.
The Palestinian group said it had only accepted plans proposed by two other mediators, Qatar and Egypt, and had a 50-day truce.
The full details of the plan have not been disclosed, but it is understood that the regional proposal will see five hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, the evacuation of Israeli forces from the recently redeployed Gaza area, and the influx of humanitarian aid. Negotiations will also be held on ending the war.
Israel hopes to release more hostages as the new truce begins.
Israeli military said troops had completed the siege of Rafah’s TV station on Wednesday [IDF via Reuters]
The IDF said in another development on Thursday that the General Staff’s fact-finding mechanism is investigating what 15 Palestinian emergency workers killed Israeli forces near Rafa on March 23, as well as what officials they buried among UN officials called “massive graves.”
“We want to have all the facts in an accurate way and we can also take responsibility if needed,” an IDF spokesperson said.
A Palestinian paramedic who survived the attack, spoke to the BBC, about Israel’s narrative brought to Israel’s account about how five ambulances, a fire truck and a UN car opened fire in response to emergency calls.
The military said the vehicles “probably advancing towards their troops” without headlights or emergency signals. It also said Hamas surgical staff and “eight other terrorists” were killed, but only named one.
Survivor Munther Abed insisted that “all the lights were on” until the vehicle caught fire directly. He also rejected the military’s claim that Hamas might use ambulances as cover, saying all emergency workers were civilians.
The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the unprecedented cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, with about 1,200 people killed and 251 taken hostages.
According to the region’s Ministry of Health, 50,520 people have been killed since Gaza.
