Israel prepared today, Sunday, to expand its attack on fighters from the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) to include southern Gaza after airstrikes resulted in the deaths of dozens of Palestinians, including civilians who were reportedly sheltering in two schools. Following the distribution of leaflets last week, Israel issued a new warning yesterday for civilians in parts of southern Gaza, urging them to relocate as it prepares for an assault on this area of the small coastal enclave, after taking control of the north.
Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), stated on X, a social media platform, that Israel bombed two schools belonging to the agency in the north, adding that more than 4,000 civilians were sheltering in one of them. He remarked, "Reports indicate that dozens were killed, including children... for the second time in less than 24 hours, schools are not safe from bombardment. Enough; these atrocities must stop." A spokesperson for Hamas authorities in Gaza stated that 200 people were killed or wounded in the school. The Israeli army did not comment.
President Mahmoud Abbas, whose government controls parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, stated on Saturday that "hundreds of forcibly displaced individuals from their homes were killed" in the Al-Fakhoura and Tal Zaatar schools in Gaza. Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas, which has governed the Gaza Strip since gunmen from the group killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages in the attack on October 7, according to Israeli statistics. As the war enters its seventh week, authorities in Gaza announced that the death toll from Israeli bombardments has risen to 12,300, including 5,000 children.
Abbas called on U.S. President Joe Biden to intervene immediately to stop the Israeli operation in Gaza. In a speech broadcast by Palestine TV, Abbas stated, "The horrific massacres committed by Israeli occupation forces against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, most recently... in the Al-Fakhoura and Tal Zaatar schools, which caused the deaths of hundreds of forcibly displaced individuals from their homes, compel me once again to call upon you and world leaders to take responsibility to stop this aggression and the crimes of genocide against our people."
Biden, who opposes a ceasefire, is looking for an end to the conflict, stating in an opinion piece published in the Washington Post that the Palestinian Authority should ultimately govern Gaza and the West Bank. In response to Biden's proposal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters in Tel Aviv that the Palestinian Authority in its current form is not capable of taking responsibility for Gaza. Israel has not disclosed a strategy regarding Gaza after the war.
As the Israeli army prepares to move south, Palestinian officials accused the army of evacuating most of the workers, patients, and forcibly displaced individuals from Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in northern Gaza, leaving them to traverse perilous routes south on foot. The Israeli forces denied the accusations, stating that the evacuations were voluntary. Military spokesperson Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israel had opened a safe corridor for civilians at the hospital to head south at the request of the hospital director.
The forces took control of the hospital days ago during their offensive in northern Gaza, claiming that it conceals an underground command center for Hamas. This assault may force hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, who fled the Israeli onslaught on Gaza City in the north, to flee again along with the residents of Khan Yunes, a city home to more than 400,000 people, potentially exacerbating the severe humanitarian crisis. The conflict has already displaced about two-thirds of Gaza's 2.3 million residents.
A senior Israeli source and two former senior officials indicated that the anticipated Israeli advance in southern Gaza may be more complex and bloody than that in the north due to the presence of militants in the Khan Yunes area.
### Airstrikes
Palestinian health officials reported that 26 Palestinians were killed and 23 injured in Israeli airstrikes on two apartments in a crowded residential building in Khan Yunes late Saturday. A Palestinian named Iyad Al-Za'aim told Reuters that he lost his aunt, her children, and a grandchild in the airstrike in Khan Yunes, saying they were all among those who complied with the Israeli army's order to evacuate northern Gaza only to die in the place the army indicated would be safe. Outside the morgue of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunes, where 26 bodies lay before being collected by their families for burial, Al-Za'aim pointed out that those killed had no connections to Hamas.
A few kilometers to the north, health authorities reported that six Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a house in Deir al-Balah. Witnesses and emergency responders stated that a third Israeli airstrike occurred on Saturday afternoon, resulting in the deaths of 15 Palestinians in a house west of Khan Yunes near a shelter for displaced individuals. Israel claims that Hamas typically conceals its militants and weapons in residential buildings and other civilian structures, a claim the group denies. The Israeli military's statement did not provide further details beyond that the air force had targeted dozens of sites in Gaza over the past 24 hours, including militants, command centers, rocket-launching sites, and munitions factories.
