At least 20 more Palestinians have been killed in another deadly day in Gaza after Israeli forces targeted a busy market and a school sheltering the displaced people.
At least eight Palestinians were killed on Tuesday in an Israeli attack on a crowded market in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, according to an Al Jazeera correspondent on the scene, who said the number of the dead could rise.
“This area is close to the market, it’s a very busy street. It has a lot of traffic and that’s why there are a lot of casualties,” Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said.
She said many children were injured in the attack that hit an area less than a kilometre (0.6 miles) away from the Al-Aqsa Hospital, where most of the injured were brought.
“There are at least 10 Palestinians, including children, still in the ICU,” Khoudary said, adding that many of them are in critical condition.
“Most of those who were wounded were children. We saw them in the hospital in the corridors lying on the ground, covered in blood and waiting for doctors.”
The attack on the market came hours after another Israeli attack targeted a school in the west of Gaza City, killing 12 people and wounding many others.
Emergency crews were searching for survivors, with dozens of people still believed to be buried under the rubble after the school building collapsed.
“Our crews retrieved 12 martyrs from the Mustafa Hafiz school, which was bombed by the Israeli occupation west of Gaza City,” Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence agency, told the AFP news agency earlier on Tuesday.
About 700 displaced Palestinians were sheltering in the school, according to civil defence authorities.
The wounded were taken to al-Alhi Arab Hospital in Gaza City.
The Israeli army claimed it targeted a command centre used by Palestinian fighters in the school – a claim it has repeatedly made while targeting Gaza’s schools without providing any evidence to back it.
Israel has systematically targeted civilian facilities, including schools, hospitals, and places of worship, amid its continuing offensive on the Gaza Strip, despite a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire.
The Israeli onslaught on Gaza has killed more than 40,173 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured another 92,857 since October 7, according to local health authorities.
Also on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar as part of the latest diplomatic mission to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, even as Hamas and Israel signalled that challenges remain.
In a statement, Palestinian armed group Hamas accused the United States of shifting the terms of the ceasefire negotiations and showing “blind bias” towards Israel.
Hamas said Blinken’s claim that it is backing away from a deal is “misleading” and that it remains committed to the US and UN-backed ceasefire framework put forward in June.
“Biden’s proposal states that Israel would entirely retreat in two phases and a complete ceasefire, whereas the Israeli demands include only a temporary ceasefire for six weeks,” senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told Al Jazeera.
