The health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza reported an Israeli strike on a school killed 30 people on Saturday, following a days-long military operation further south that killed over 170 people, according to emergency services.
The latest strike, which Israel said targeted “terrorists,” was at least the ninth time a school has been targeted since July 6, killing more than 100 people, according to numbers provided by the health ministry and a hospital source.
With the majority of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million Palestinians uprooted at least once since the war that began with Hamas’ October 7 offensive, many have sought sanctuary in school buildings, including the one targeted on Saturday.
The health ministry claimed “30 martyrs and more than 100 wounded” in the attack on Khadija school in the central Deir el-Balah neighbourhood.
According to Israel’s military, Palestinian militants were utilising the compound as a “hiding place”.
Since Monday, an Israeli operation in the Khan Yunis city region has killed “and hundreds wounded” approximately 170 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.
It announced the toll as the military warned of further operations in the Khan Yunis area, where troops had already recovered the bodies of five Israelis killed in the October 7 strike and held in Gaza since.
Fears of a larger regional battle rose again on Saturday amid deadly clashes between Lebanese Hamas ally Hezbollah and Israeli soldiers, who have been exchanging cross-border fire since early October.
A missile attack blamed on Hezbollah killed at least 11 people, including children, in Israel’s annexed Golan Heights, medics reported.
Hezbollah, which has disputed involvement for the hit on Majdal Shams, had previously claimed credit for several attacks on Israeli military targets following an air raid on southern Lebanon that killed four of its militants.
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