The Israeli army ordered new evacuations in southern Gaza on Sunday after a deadly airstrike on a school in the north where displaced people were being housed. Israel accuses Hamas and other militants of hiding among civilians and launching attacks from residential areas. Meanwhile, the United States, Egypt and Qatar are trying to broker a ceasefire and the return of about 110 hostages remaining in Gaza.
The Israeli army ordered new evacuations in southern Gaza on Sunday after a deadly airstrike on a school in the north where displaced people were being housed. Local health authorities said at least 90 Palestinians were killed in the attack, figures that could not be independently verified.
The latest evacuation orders apply to areas in Khan Younis, including parts of an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone, from which the military said rockets were fired.
Israel accuses Hamas and other militants of hiding among civilians and launching attacks from residential areas. Khan Younis, Gaza's second largest city, suffered major destruction during the air and ground offensive earlier this year. Tens of thousands of people fled again last week following an earlier evacuation order.
Saturday's attack on the school housing displaced people sparked international outrage. Israel said the strike targeted a command post of the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad and killed 19 fighters.
“Intelligence information indicated that the terrorist Ashraf Juda, commander of the Islamic Jihad brigade, was in the compound. He was inside the Tabaeen school building in Gaza City. After receiving clear information that these terrorists posed a threat and in accordance with international humanitarian law, we took numerous steps to mitigate the risk to civilians, including the use of pre-attack aerial surveillance and the choice of highly accurate munitions to avoid casualties civilians,” said an Israeli army spokesman.
The White House said it was “deeply concerned” about the attack on the school and is in communication with Israel to seek information.
Several Arab states, Turkey, Britain and the head of the European Union's foreign policy condemned the attack.
The Israeli military said it had struck about 30 Hamas military targets in the past 24 hours, including military structures, anti-tank missile launch sites and weapons storage facilities.
Islamic Jihad's armed wing said fighters fired mortars at Israeli forces in the eastern areas of Khan Younis.
Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza since the war began last October, according to Palestinian sources. Health officials in Gaza, which is run by the militant group Hamas, say most of the victims are civilians, but Israel says at least a third are fighters. Israel, on the other hand, says it has lost 329 soldiers in the fighting.
The latest bloodshed in the decade-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict came after Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Most of Gaza's 2.3 million residents have been displaced from their homes several times, according to the United Nations, while their narrow strip of land has largely turned into a wasteland of rubble.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar have been trying for months to broker a ceasefire and the return of about 110 hostages remaining in Gaza. Israeli authorities believe that about a third of them have died.
The conflict has meanwhile threatened to spark a regional war, as Israel has exchanged fire with Iran and other militant groups in the region, its allies.
