Israel has bombed two UN schools in northern Gaza where thousands of civilians were sheltering, killing and injuring hundreds, according to Palestinian officials. Meanwhile, World Health Organization officials visiting the Al-Shifa hospital after it was raided earlier in the week described the harrowing situation at the Strip's largest medical facility as a "death zone."

"Dozens reported killed including children," Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini of UNRWA, the UN aid organization for Palestinian refugees, wrote on social media platform X, following the bombing of the schools. Stating that more than 4,000 civilians were sheltered at one of the sites, he added: "Second time in less than 24 hours schools are not spared. ENOUGH, these horrors must stop."

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose government controls parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said "hundreds of forcibly displaced people were killed" at the two schools in Gaza. Social media videos verified by AFP showed bodies covered in blood and dust on the floor of a building where mattresses had been wedged under school tables, in Jabalia, the Palestinian territory's biggest refugee camp.

Neighboring Egypt called the bombing a "war crime" and "a deliberate insult to the United Nations." A separate attack on another building in Jabalia camp killed 32 people from the same family, 19 of them children, Hamas health authorities said. Without mentioning the strikes, the Israeli army said "an incident in the Jabalia region" was under review.

Palestinian health officials said a further 31 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Bureij and Nusseirat refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip, including two Palestinian journalists. The officials added that a woman and her child were killed in a strike overnight in Khan Younis in southern Gaza Strip, as Israel said on Saturday its military was "expanding its operational activities in additional neighborhoods of the Gaza Strip."

While its army says it has wrested control of large areas of the north and northwest around Gaza City, guerrilla-style Hamas resistance remains fierce, including in parts of Gaza City and the sprawling Jabalia and Beach refugee camps. Witnesses reported heavy fighting overnight between Hamas gunmen and Israeli ground forces trying to advance into Jabalia.

Israel has vowed to destroy Gaza's governing body Hamas in response to the October 7 attacks, which officials say killed about 1,200 people, and saw about 240 people taken hostage. The army's air and ground campaign in Gaza has since killed 12,300 people, more than 5,000 of them children, according to the Hamas government.

'Death zone'

Gaza's largest hospital, Al-Shifa, has been a key target of Israel's invasion of Gaza in recent days, with the army raiding the medical facility after alleging Hamas was using it as a command center, a claim denied by the group and medical staff. Meanwhile, visiting independent bodies and international experts have refuted much of the evidence provided by Israel's military of such activity at the site. 

On Sunday, a team led by the WHO described the hospital as a "death zone", with a mass grave at the entrance and nearly 300 patients left inside with 25 health workers. It said it was planning "the immediate evacuation of the remaining patients, staff and their families," warning, however, that nearby facilities were already overstretched and urging an immediate ceasefire given the "extreme suffering of the people of Gaza."

One day earlier, hundreds of people fled the hospital on foot on orders from the Israeli army, according to the facility's director. Columns of sick and injured - some of them amputees - were seen leaving with displaced people, doctors and nurses, as loud explosions were heard around the complex.

The WHO said 29 patients at the hospital with serious spinal injuries cannot move without medical assistance, and others have infected wounds due to lack of antibiotics. There are also 32 babies in "extremely critical condition," WHO said.

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Global Relations – The Agenda

The Washington Post has reported that Israel, the U.S. and Hamas have reached a tentative deal to free dozens of hostages in Gaza in exchange for a five-day pause in fighting, claiming their release could begin within the next several days, according to people familiar with the detailed, six-page agreement. 

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. officials have denied that such a deal had been reached yet.

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