ReutersThursday, at least 69 people were killed by Israeli fire across Gaza, according to Israel, while Israel intensified its bombing of the Palestinian territory.
An air strike killed 15 people in a school that has become a shelter for families in Gaza City, according to the Civil Defense Agency managed by Hamas. The Israeli army said it was targeting a “key” from Hamas based there.
The civil defense also said that 38 people had been killed during the queue to get help, or on the way to recover it. The army said that such reports on extended victims were “lies”.
It occurs when the pressure rises on Israel and Hamas to accept a new cease-fire agreement and the release of hostages pushed by US President Donald Trump.
Trump announced Tuesday that Israel had accepted the “necessary conditions” to finalize a 60-day ceasefire. However, there are still obstacles that could prevent rapid agreement.
Hamas said it was studying the proposals – the details of which have still not been made public – but that it still wants an end to war and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will go to Washington on Monday, has meanwhile insisted that the Palestinian armed group must be eliminated.
Thursday, Israeli Defense Forces (FDI) said that his plane had reached around 150 “terrorism targets” in Gaza in the previous 24 hours, including fighters, tunnels and weapons.
The Ministry of Health managed by Gaza said 118 people had been killed during the same period.
Fifteen people, most of them, women and children, were killed when a school accommodation moved from families in the Al-Rimal district of Gaza City was struck before dawn on Thursday, said the Civil Defense Agency led by Hamas and the doctors said.
Watch Wafaa al-Arqan told Reuters News Agency: “Suddenly we found the tent that collapses on us and a burning fire … What can we do? Is it right that all these children have burned?”
The FDI said that it had struck a “Key Hamas terrorist” who operated in a “command and control center” in Gaza City, without mentioning the school.
The FDI added that it took many measures to alleviate the risk of harming civilians and accused Hamas of using human shields – an allegation that the group has repeatedly refused.
At least five other displaced people were said to have been killed when a tent was struck overnight in the southern Al-Mawasi region, where the FDI told residents of the areas affected by its evacuation orders to go to their own security.
Ashraf Abu Shaba, who lived in a neighboring tent, said he saw the bodies of children and women wrapped in blankets afterwards.
“The occupation [Israel] Affirms that there are safe areas, but there are no safe areas. Each place is a target … The situation is unbearable, “he added.
Later, the spokesman for the Civil Defense Mahmoud Bassal told the AFP news agency that 38 other people had been killed by Israeli forces when they asked for help.
He said 25 had been killed near the Israeli military netzarim corridor in the center of Gaza. Six died in another nearby place, while seven were killed in the southern region of Rafah, he added.
Doctors at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis told Reuters separately that at least 20 people had been killed while they were heading for a help distribution center.
There was no direct response to the IDF reports.
ReutersLast week, the FDI said that it was examining the injured civilians when approaching the southern sites in the southern and the Gaza Center led by Gaza Humaninian Foundation (GHF), supported by the United States and Israel.
On Thursday, TDI spokesperson, Brigen-Gen Effie Defrin, recognized in a briefing that Israeli forces were faced with a “complex challenge” and to learn “from each incident to prevent similar cases in the future”.
But he said: “The allegation reports of in -depth victims in aid distribution centers are lies.”
There have been fatal incident reports near the distribution sites almost every day since the start of the GHF on May 26.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, at least 408 people have been killed near GHF centers in the past five weeks. 175 other people were killed by looking for help elsewhere, including along the roads used by the United Nations convoys, he said.
The GHF, which uses American private security entrepreneurs, said that “distribution on all sites went well” on Thursday and that it had now distributed more than a million boxes of food.
The GHF also rejected the “categorically false” allegations of a former security entrepreneur, who told the BBC that he had seen colleagues open fire to civilians awaiting help.
The UN and other aid groups refuse to cooperate with the GHF, claiming that its new system contravenes fundamental humanitarian principles.
The United States and Israel say that the GHF system will prevent aid from being stolen by Hamas.
The Israeli army launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the attack on October 7, 2023 of Hamas against Israel, during which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
At least 57,130 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the Ministry of Health of the territory.
