The Israeli military ordered Palestinians to evacuate from southern areas of Khan Younis on Saturday, as local authorities said that dozens of people had been killed in strikes on a school to the north.
“Due to significant terrorist activity and rocket fire toward the State of Israel from the southern area of Khan Younis, remaining in this area has become dangerous,” the Israel Defense Forces said on X, warning it was “about to forcefully operate” there and was adjusting the area it considered a humanitarian zone.
It is the second time in less than a week that Israel has ordered the evacuation of a former safe area. On Monday, the IDF ordered the evacuation of an eastern sector of the city of Khan Younis, including an area in the Mawasi neighborhood that was previously within the boundaries of a designated safe zone for displaced people. Israel said it was targeting Hamas militants who had been firing rockets from the area.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had been sheltering in the safe zone area, having been displaced multiple times since the war began.
“It keeps happening over and over and over,” Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, said earlier this week. “They are forced from place to place, promised safety where there is none.”
Central Gaza was hit by heavy fighting Saturday, as Israeli forces struck a school-turned-shelter in the Deir al-Balah area, which Gaza’s civil defense workers said had been housing 4,000 displaced people. The Gaza Health Ministry said 30 people were killed and more than 100 injured in the Israeli airstrike.
In a statement, the IDF said that it hit “terrorists operating a Hamas command and control center embedded inside the Khadija School in central Gaza” and that precautions were taken to “mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of appropriate munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence.”
Yazan Ahmed, 33, whose tent is near the school, told The Washington Post that the school was targeted with four successive missiles at around noon local time. He said he went to help rescue people from the school, and “the scene cannot be described. The limbs were torn everywhere. They were all women and children whose bodies were torn apart.”
Here’s what else to know
The Israel Defense Forces said one of its navy ships intercepted a drone flying close to the offshore Karish gas field. The Saturday statement noted that a drone flew in from Lebanese territory, but added that it was not immediately clear if the drone was for reconnaissance purposes or equipped with explosives. Hezbollah, which has not commented on the claims, has previously threatened to hit Israeli oil platforms in the event of an all-out war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Friday with former president Donald Trump, the latest stop on a whirlwind trip for the Israeli leader, who addressed a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday and met with President Biden and Vice President Harris on Thursday. Trump has been openly critical of Netanyahu’s management of the war in Gaza, but both men downplayed past antagonisms Friday, with Trump saying “we’ve always had a very good relationship.”
At least 39,258 people have been killed and 90,589 injured in Gaza since the war started, the Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday. It does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 328 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operations in Gaza.
Alon Rom contributed to this report.
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