Israeli attack on school housing displaced Palestinians leaves 16 dead

An Israeli attack on a school housing displaced Palestinian families in Al-Nuseirat in central Gaza killed at least 16 people on Saturday, the territory’s health ministry and the official Palestinian news agency reported. The ministry, which condemned the attack as a “heinous massacre,” said another 50 injured people were taken to hospital from Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat in central Gaza. The UN school was where 7,000 people had sought shelter, the Hamas-led government’s press office said. Earlier, medics reported that 10 people, including three journalists, had been killed in an attack on a house in Nuseirat. The UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said two of its staff were killed in an attack in Al-Bureij in central Gaza. The agency has a large food warehouse in the district. Israel has waged a military offensive since Oct. 7 that has killed at least 38,098 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The attack on the school meant there was no longer a safe place in the enclave for families leaving their homes to seek shelter, an official said. Al-Nuseirat, one of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, was the scene of intensified Israeli bombardment on Saturday. Five local journalists were among those killed in separate airstrikes, bringing the number of journalists killed since Oct. 7 to 158, according to the Hamas-led government’s media office in Gaza. Israeli forces, which have stepped up incursions in Rafah in the south of the enclave near the border with Egypt, killed four Palestinian police officers and wounded eight others in an airstrike on their vehicle on Saturday, health officials said. The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas denies Israeli allegations that it uses civilian property and facilities for military purposes.Real progress in ceasefire talks: USAPalestinian resistance movement Hamas has accepted a U.S. proposal to start talks on a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages, Reuters quoted a senior Hamas source as saying. The group has dropped a demand that Israel first commit to a permanent ceasefire before signing the deal and will allow negotiations on achieving that goal during the first six-week phase, the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity because the talks are confidential. A U.S. official declined to confirm Hamas’ decision, adding: “There is real progress but much remains to be done.” The proposal could lead to a framework agreement if accepted by Israel and would end the nine-month-old war, a Palestinian official said. A source in the Israeli negotiating team, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Friday there was now a real chance of a deal. A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Friday, his office said talks would continue next week, stressing that differences of opinion remained between the sides.