An Israeli airstrike near a school in the southern Gaza Strip killed about 30 people late Tuesday evening, most of them civilians who had sought shelter in the facility, according to authorities in the Hamas-controlled enclave. Dozens more were injured.
The Israeli military confirmed that it had launched an attack on a Hamas fighter “near” the Al-Awda school east of the city of Khan Younis and said it was “investigating reports that civilians have been harmed.”
“The incident is currently being investigated,” the Israeli military added, stressing that the target of the attack was a Hamas member who took part in the group’s cross-border attack from the Gaza Strip on October 7 that sparked the war that is now entering its tenth month.
Video footage of the scene taken by Palestinian civilians shows a soccer game in the schoolyard being interrupted by a loud bang. Spectators rushed to the gate and found bodies and injured people scattered on the ground.
The airstrike came as Israeli forces continued ground operations in other parts of the area, including a renewed offensive in several neighborhoods of Gaza City and the Shejaiya district in the north of the enclave, as well as in the southern city of Rafah on the border with Egypt.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants had used the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza as a base to attack their troops. After ensuring the safe evacuation of civilians, a “targeted raid” was launched on the facility, the military added.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, said all sides – the Israeli forces, Hamas and other Palestinian groups – are using UNRWA facilities in the fighting. He said two-thirds of UNRWA schools in Gaza have been attacked and damaged since the war began. On Wednesday, he wrote on X: “In the last 4 days, 4 schools have been hit.”
“Schools have gone from being safe places of education (and) hope for children to overcrowded shelters and often end up as places of death (and) misery,” he added.
Israeli officials claim that Hamas fighters are staying in schools and UNRWA facilities, taking cover behind displaced civilians, and that the militant group is systematically using this civilian infrastructure for military purposes throughout the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, tensions between Israel and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah movement escalated on Tuesday after two Israeli civilians were killed in the Golan Heights when a rocket hit their car. The rocket fire was part of a barrage of about 40 missiles fired by the Iran-backed group in retaliation for an alleged Israeli airstrike the same day in Syria that killed a senior Hezbollah figure.
Yasser Qarnabash, believed to be a former bodyguard of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, was traveling on the highway from Beirut to Damascus when his vehicle was hit.
In response to the killing of Israeli civilians, the Israeli military said it had attacked Hezbollah’s air defense systems deep inside Lebanon, in the Janat area of the Bekaa Valley, early Wednesday morning.
Since the conflict in Gaza began, Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire almost daily. Although the clashes are still limited, they have forced around 200,000 people to flee in northern Israel and southern Lebanon, raising concerns about further escalation and the risk of open war between the two sides. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that he will return the residents of northern Israel to their homes, either through US-sponsored diplomatic talks or by “other means.”
Hezbollah, for its part, has pledged to continue shelling Israel as long as fighting continues in the Gaza Strip.
High-level international talks were due to resume in Doha on Wednesday on a possible ceasefire in the Gaza Strip that would ensure the release of the last Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7.
CIA chief Bill Burns and David Barnea, head of Israel’s Mossad, were due to meet with Qatari and Egyptian mediators to restart negotiations with Hamas that have been stalled for months. A U.S. official last week expressed optimism about the chances of reaching a deal, saying there was now a “significant chance” of it happening.
However, Netanyahu stressed over the weekend that there were “still differences between the sides” and reiterated on Sunday that he was not ready to end the war as part of the agreement “until all war aims are achieved”.
