ISRAELI airstrikes hit a school being used by displaced people in central Gaza on Saturday, with dozens killed in the attack.
At least 30 people sheltering at a girls’ school in Deir Al-Balah were taken to Al-Aqsa Hospital and pronounced dead, after a strike that Israel’s military said targeted a Hamas command and control centre used to store weapons and plan attacks.
Gaza’s health ministry has confirmed that at least 11 people had been killed in other strikes on Saturday.
Near the hospital, Associated Press journalists saw an ambulance driving along a dusty road as a few people ran in the opposite direction.
An injured man lay on a stretcher on the ground. A body covered with a blanket and a dead toddler were inside the ambulance.
Inside the school, classrooms were in ruins. People were searching for victims under the rubble and some were gathering remains of those who were killed.
Earlier, Israel’s military ordered the evacuation of a part of a designated humanitarian zone in Gaza ahead of a planned strike on Khan Younis on Saturday.
The evacuation order was in response to rocket fire that Israel said originated from the area.
The military said it planned an operation against Hamas militants in the city, including parts of Muwasi, the crowded tent camp in an area where Israel has told thousands of Palestinians to seek refuge throughout the war.
The planned strike came a day before officials from the US, Egypt, Qatar and Israel meet in Italy to discuss the ongoing hostage and ceasefire negotiations.
CIA director Bill Burns is expected to meet Qatari prime minister Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani, Mossad director David Barnea and Egyptian spy chief Abbas Kamel on Sunday, according to officials from the US and Egypt.
It is the second evacuation order issued in a week that has included striking part of the humanitarian zone – 20 square miles of tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say.
Israel expanded the zone in May to take in people fleeing Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population at the time had crowded.
According to Israeli estimates, about 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there after being uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel’s punishing air and ground campaign.
In November, the military said the area could still be struck and that it was “not a safe zone, but it is a safer place than any other” in Gaza.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said it was increasingly difficult to know how many people would be affected by the evacuation order because those sheltering under there were constantly being displaced.
“Referring to the orders as evacuation orders doesn't do any justice to what this means,” said Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications.
“These are forced displacement orders. What happens is when people have these orders, they have very little time to move.”
Further north, Palestinians mourned the deaths of seven killed by Israeli airstrikes overnight on Zawaida, in central Gaza.
Deir al-Balah’s Al-Aqsa hospital confirmed the count and Associated Press journalists saw the bodies.
Irish premier Simon Harris (below) was among those to condemn the attack, saying it was "inhumane and despicable".
In a statement, he said it was a "further demonstration of brutal, unconscionable violence" and reiterated his calls for an immediate ceasefire.
"The bloodshed and suffering needs to end," he said.
Meanwhile, a rocket attack from Lebanon on a football field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights has reportedly killed at least nine people.
The attack on the Golan Heights also wounded 34 people, including 17 in critical condition, according to the Israeli emergency service.
Israeli media reported that most of those killed and injured were children with the Israel Defence Forces blaming Hezbollah for the attack.
However, Hezbollah spokesperson Mohamad Afif denied “any relation to the Majdal Shams incident”.
Israel's bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians.
The UN estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.
The bombardment began after an assault by Hamas militants on southern Israel on October 7 that killed 1200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages.
About 115 are still in Gaza and about a third of them are believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.
