At least 61 people were killed in Israeli military strikes in the Palestinian Gaza Strip over a span of 48 hours, local medics said on Saturday, as the Israeli army battles Hamas militants in the region.
Eleven months into the war, several rounds of diplomacy have so far failed to reach a ceasefire agreement to end the conflict and secure the release of Israeli and foreign hostages held in Gaza as well as many Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
At least eight people were killed and 15 others injured in an Israeli air strike on the Halima al-Sadia school complex, which serves as a shelter for displaced people in the Jabalia urban refugee camp, medics said.
The Israeli military said the target of the attack was a Hamas command center inside the compound. It accused the Hamas group of repeatedly exploiting civilians and civilian infrastructure for military purposes, a charge Hamas denies.
Five more people were killed in an attack on a house in Gaza City.
Later on Saturday, four people were killed and 25 others wounded in an Israeli attack on the Amr Ibn Alaas school, which also houses displaced families, in the Sheikh Radwan suburb of Gaza City, Palestinian medics said.
The Israeli military said the airstrike targeted a command center run by Hamas gunmen that previously served as a school.
Palestinian health officials said 28 people have been killed so far in Israeli military attacks in the Gaza Strip on Saturday.
The armed wings of the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah groups said they had fought Israeli troops in Gaza City, the central regions and the south with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs, and in some incidents fired bombs targeting tanks and other military vehicles.
The two warring sides continue to blame each other for the failure of mediators, including Qatar, Egypt and the United States, to broker a ceasefire. The US is preparing to present a new proposal, but the chances of success appear bleak as differences between the two sides are still large.
Chief US negotiator and CIA Director William Burns said at an event in London that a more detailed proposal would be put forward in the coming days.
Polio vaccination continued due to interruption in fighting
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it was necessary for both Israel and Hamas to make concessions to reach an agreement, as we ruled Gaza before the war and Hamas was responsible for the massacre of Jews in Israel on October 7.
On Saturday, senior Hamas official Hosam Badran said the group had made no new demands and was committed to the proposal put forward by the US on July 2. He accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of adding new conditions that would not end the war.
Netanyahu says it was Hamas that offered unacceptable conditions.
Despite the impasse, the United Nations has partnered with local health authorities to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza, which has seen its first case of polio in 25 years. The campaign has been able to proceed with limited disruptions from the fighting.
UN officials said they were making progress, and that doses had reached more than half of the children who needed them in the first two phases in the southern and central Gaza Strip.
On Sunday, the campaign will move to the northern Gaza Strip. The second phase of vaccination will be necessary four weeks after the first phase.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict began on October 7 when the Hamas group attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, Israeli figures show.
Israel’s assault on the territory killed more than 40,900 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while displacing almost the entire population of 2.3 million, leading to a starvation crisis and World Court charges of genocide, which Israel denies.
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