A rocket was fired after Israel struck a Gaza school
An Israeli Airstrike Hits a Sports Complex and a School Building: A Gazan Strike Backs on a Soccer Complex
TEL AVIV, Israel, and GAZA STRIP — A rocket hit a sports complex filled with children playing soccer in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights region Saturday afternoon, on the same day that an Israeli strike in Gaza devastated a school building and killed dozens of people.
The airstrike in central Gaza was the latest to shatter a school used to shelter displaced Palestinian residents Saturday morning, killing 30 and wounding more than 100. The Health Ministry of Gazan said that a large number of the dead were children.
The school was located in the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah, where many Palestinians have fled following evacuation orders the Israeli military has issued for regions farther south in Gaza.
There were pieces of blood on the stairs and people who were handicapped tried to flee during the minutes after the strike, according to NPR reporter Anas Baba.
Wounded children were carried away afterward on donkey carts, video captured by Baba showed, with bodies borne aloft by makeshift stretchers built from pieces of debris. In nearby hospitals, Baba found hallways lined with bodies, several of them clearly very young children.
The crowded school complex had around 4,000 people sheltering there, and according to Gazan health authorities part of the targeted site was also being used as a field hospital. No warning of the strike was provided in advance to those inside.
The Israeli military ordered the new evacuate of part of the humanitarian zone in the Gaza Strip. Israel said that the rocket fire came from the area.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Light of the Gaza War: Israel Will Not Give Up on the Isolation of Hezbollah
Later Saturday, the Israeli ambulance service said a rocket launched from southern Lebanon killed 11 children, with around 30 injured, several of those very seriously.
Israel says Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Lebanese militia, launched around 40 rockets from southern Lebanon toward northern Israel Saturday, with the most of them intercepted and shot down.
A spokesperson for the Israeli military, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said it was the deadliest single attack on an Israeli target since Oct. 7, the date of the Hamas-led attack on Israel that sparked the current war in Gaza.
The incident has prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was briefed on the situation while in Washington, D.C., to return to Israel from the U.S. earlier than planned. He will convene a cabinet meeting of his top political allies and security officials upon his return.
Netanyahu said in a statement that the entire nation of Israel “embraced the children’s families and the entire Druze community” in its difficult hour.
After months of skirmishes, alongside artillery, airstrikes and rocket attacks that have been traded back and forth across Israel’s border with Lebanon, many analysts and regional leaders have expressed concerns about a significant military escalation between Hezbollah and the Israel military.
Netanyahu warned in his Office statement that “the State of Israel will not let this pass undisturbed,” despite the public message from Hezbollah which categorically denied involvement. We will not overlook this.”
The Lebanese parliamentary speaker said Hezbollah’s denial of its involvement confirmed its commitment to avoiding violence against civilians, and proved Lebanon was not responsible.
The targeting of civilians is a violation of international law, and the government of Lebanon condemned acts of violence and attacks against civilians.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to push ahead with the war in Gaza after an Israeli airstrike hits a school used as a shelter
Associated Press journalists saw a dead toddler in an ambulance and bodies covered with blankets. Inside the school, shattered walls gaped and classrooms were in ruins. People searched for people in rubble that was strewn with pillows.
A meeting will be held in Italy on Sunday to discuss cease-fire negotiations. The US and Egypt are not authorized to discuss the plans, but officials from the US and Egypt said that Bill Burns is expected to meet a few other foreign heads of state.
The basic framework of the three-phase deal under consideration was agreed to by Israel and Hamas. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his speech to the U.S. Congress vowed to press ahead with the war until Israel achieves “total victory.”
The speech was condemned by the Palestinians after the strike on the school. The reception Netanyahu received in the US constituted a green light to continue Israel’s offensive, said Abu Rudeineh in a statement.
“Every time the occupation bombs a school that shelters displaced persons, we see only some condemnations and denunciations that will not force the occupation to stop its bloody aggression,” he said.
The military said it planned an operation against Hamas militants in the city, including parts of Muwasi, the crowded tent camp in an area where Israel has told thousands of Palestinians to seek refuge.
At least three health centers stopped giving care because of the orders to evacuate, according to Gaza Health Ministry officials.
Source: At least 30 dead in Gaza after an Israeli airstrike hits a school used as a shelter
Gaza is safer than any other, but Israelis don’t have time to move: Israeli air-strikes and civilian casualties in the Balata camp
The amount of Palestinians who are staying in the zone is believed to be about 1.8 million, thanks to the Israeli air and ground campaign. In November, the military said the area could still be struck and that it was “not a safe zone, but it is a safer place than any other” in Gaza.
“These are forced displacement orders,” said Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications. “What happens is when people have these orders, they have very little time to move.”
Farther north, Palestinians mourned seven killed by Israeli airstrikes overnight on Zawaida, in central Gaza. Parents and their two children and a mother and her two children were wrapped in white burial shrouds as friends and neighbors wept.
In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a 17-year-old was killed and nine other people wounded after an Israeli drone strike in Balata camp in Nablus. The Israeli military said one of its aircraft attacked from the air as part of its activity in Nablus.
The war began after Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel in which 1,200 people died, most of them civilians. Israel says 115 people are still in Gaza and about a third of them are dead.
