Hamas health ministry says Israeli strike killed 15 at Gaza UN school

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least 15 people were killed on Saturday when Israel struck a United Nations school where thousands of displaced Palestinians were sheltering.

“The massacre at the Al-Fakhura school committed by the occupation (Israel) this morning left 15 martyrs and 70 wounded,” ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said at a press conference.

The ministry had earlier said that 12 people had been killed and 54 wounded.

There was no immediate comment from Israel, and AFP was unable to independently confirm the toll.

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There was also no immediate comment from the UN aid agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

On Thursday, UNRWA said that four of its schools in the Gaza Strip housing people displaced by the war had been damaged by bombings.

Latest developments in the Gaza war

Fighting raged in Gaza on Saturday for a 29th day since Hamas militants stormed across the Israeli border and, according to Israeli officials, killed 1 400 people, mostly civilians, and abducted more than 240 others.

Since then, Israel has relentlessly bombarded the Gaza Strip and sent in ground troops, with the health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory saying 9 488 people have been killed, about two-thirds of them women and children.

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Here are five key developments from the past 24 hours:

Blinken in Jordan

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Jordan on Saturday for talks with counterparts from five Arab countries, after visiting Israel in his efforts to secure humanitarian “pauses” in the war.

Amman said the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as well as a representative of the Palestinian Authority – led by president Mahmud Abbas, a rival of Hamas – would meet Blinken about the conflict.

Ambulance strikes

The Palestinian Red Crescent reported at least 15 deaths in an Israeli strike on Friday on an ambulance convoy in Gaza City, while Israel accused Hamas of using the vehicles to transport fighters.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “horrified by the reported attack… on an ambulance convoy” and called for the fighting to stop.

South Gaza incursion

The Israeli army said on Saturday its forces carried out an overnight “targeted raid” in southern Gaza, where it has struck before but rarely sent in troops.

Soldiers “operated to map out buildings and neutralise explosive devices”, the army said without specifying the location.

It said “troops encountered a terrorist cell exiting a tunnel shaft. In response, the troops fired shells toward the terrorists and killed them.”

Israel strikes Lebanon

The Israeli military said on Saturday it had struck “two terrorist cells” and a Hezbollah post in response to attempted firing from Lebanon.

It said it had also responded to mortar fire from Lebanon into northern Israel, where no casualties were reported.

The latest skirmishes came a day after Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement, warned in a televised speech that the war between Israel and Hamas could turn into a regional conflict.

Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Patrick Ryder told the BBC that Hezbollah was unlikely to escalate the violence, saying “a broader regional conflict has been deterred”.

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Evacuations continue

Hundreds of Palestinians and foreigners, including Gazans requiring urgent medical care and dual nationals, were expected to leave Gaza on Saturday for a fourth day of evacuations through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, according to a list released by the Palestinian border authority.

On Friday, a senior White House official said Hamas had tried to use a US-brokered deal on opening the Rafah crossing on humanitarian grounds to get its fighters out of Gaza.

One-third of the names on a list provided by Hamas of wounded Palestinians for evacuation were those of Hamas members and fighters, the official said.

“That was just unacceptable to Egypt, to us, to Israel,” the official added.