Israeli forces stepped up airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 56 people and dozens other injured since dawn, Palestinian medics said, in further battle with Hamas fighters as Israel braced for potential wider war in the region.

Airstrikes hit a cluster of houses in central Gaza's Al-Bureij camp, killing at least 15 people, and the nearby Al-Nuseirat camp, killing four, medics said. 

Nuseirat and Bureij are among the densely populated enclave's eight historic camps and seen by Israel as strongholds of armed fighters.

Israeli aircraft also bombed a house in the heart of Gaza City in the north, killing five Palestinians, while another airstrike in the southern city of Khan Younis killed one person and wounded others, according to medics.

Later on Thursday, 15 Palestinians were killed and 30 injured in Israeli bombings of two schools east of Gaza City, the territory's Civil Emergency Service said in a statement.

The Israeli military said it struck Hamas command and control centers embedded in the Abdel-Fattah Hamouda and Al-Zahra schools in the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City, where Hamas militants were operating.

Footage circulated on social media, which could not immediately be verified, showed casualties being brought to a hospital on donkey carts.

The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they were firing anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs at Israeli forces operating across Gaza, causing deaths and injuries among them.

Since the war started on October 7, at least 39,699 Palestinians have been killed, and 91,722 injured in Israel's devastating air and ground war in Gaza, the Gaza health ministry said in an update.

Renewed evacuation orders

On Thursday, dozens of Palestinians rushed into Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis to bid farewell to slain relatives before carrying them away for burials.

News agency footage showed relatives moving out the bodies of their loved ones in plastic bags with names written on them, and holding special prayers before the funerals.

The Israeli military renewed evacuation orders to Palestinian residents in several districts in eastern Khan Younis, saying it would act forcefully against armed fighters who had unleashed rockets from those areas.

The army posted the evacuation order on X, and residents said they had received text and audio messages.

On Thursday, the World Central Kitchen (WCK), a U.S.-based, non-governmental humanitarian agency, said that a Palestinian staff member, Nadi Sallout, had been killed while apparently off duty near Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza. The WCK said it was seeking further details.

The Israeli military said it did not know of any such incident, adding that it had been in contact with WCK.

Netanyahu 'sorry' for October 7

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview that he was "sorry" that Hamas was able to carry out its October 7 attack, without explicitly taking responsibility.

Netanyahu, who has resisted making an apology for security failures over Israel's worst-ever attack and focused on destroying Hamas, was asked if he would apologize during an interview with Time magazine.

"Apologize?" he was quoted as replying. "Of course, of course. I am sorry, deeply, that something like this happened. And you always look back and you say, 'Could we have done things that would have prevented it?'"

Israel committed a costly "strategic mistake" with its killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week, Iran's acting foreign minister told journalists.

"The act that the Zionists carried out in Tehran was a strategic mistake because it will cost them gravely," Ali Bagheri said one day after attending an extraordinary session of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah.

Although Israel has not commented on Haniyeh's death, Iran has vowed to retaliate, setting the region on edge.

The meeting on Wednesday of foreign ministers from the 57-member OIC produced a declaration holding Israel "fully responsible" for the "heinous" killing of Haniyeh, who lived in Qatar and was a major player in talks to end the war in the Gaza Strip.

'We must see a de-escalation'

Despite mounting fears of an escalation in the region and calls for restraint from Washington, Bagheri told journalists that OIC members voiced support for Iranian retaliation.

The UK's minister for development expressed concern for refugees across the Middle East as regional tensions soar, warning that "the most vulnerable" would suffer first in an escalation.

Minister Anneliese Dodds said in an interview during a visit to Jordan that "currently, sadly, we are in a concerning situation geopolitically."

"We must see a de-escalation. It's in no one's interest to have an escalation of conflict," she added.

Meanwhile, Norway said that Israel's decision to revoke the diplomatic status of Oslo's envoys to the Palestinian Authority was an "extreme action" that would "have consequences."

Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said the action - which Israel said was taken in response to what it said was Oslo's "anti-Israel behavior" - demonstrated that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was "actively working against a two-state solution" for Israelis and Palestinians.

"Today's decision will have consequences for our relationship with the Netanyahu government," Eide said. "We are considering what measures Norway will take to respond to the situation that the Netanyahu government has now created."

Hussein al-Sheikh, the secretary general of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the move "carries dangerous dimensions and has major repercussions."

Israel's budget deficit reached 8.1 percent of its GDP in the 12 months leading up to the end of July, amounting to $2.2 billion, according to preliminary figures from the Finance Ministry, as reported by The Times of Israel. 

This figure is nearly double the 4.2 percent deficit recorded at the end of 2023 and exceeds Israel's 2024 target deficit of 6.6 percent. The increased spending, driven by tens of billions allocated to the war in Gaza since October, has contributed to the widening deficit. 

Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron warned in late May that the total military and civilian costs of the war from 2023 to 2025 could amount to $67 billion.

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