Extract from ABC News
In short:
At least 30 Palestinians have died after the Israeli military struck a girls' school being used by displaced people in central Gaza.
Israel said the school in Deir Al-Balah had been operating as a Hamas "command and control centre".
The attack came as Israel ordered a further evacuation of a "safe zone" in Khan Younis so it could "forcefully operate" there.
At least 30 Palestinians were killed by an Israeli strike on a girls' school being used by displaced people in the central Gazan city of Deir Al-Balah on Saturday, Palestinian health officials said.
The death toll was provided by both Gaza's health ministry and the Hamas-run government media office, which also said over 100 others were wounded.
The Israeli military said in a statement it had targeted a "Hamas command and control centre inside the Khadija school compound in central Gaza".
At Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, ambulances raced wounded Palestinians into the medical facility. Some of the wounded also arrived on foot, their clothes stained with blood.
Earlier on Saturday, Palestinian official media said at least 14 Palestinians in the southern city of Khan Younis had been killed by Israeli attacks since dawn, and that their bodies were brought to the Nasser Medical Complex.
The Israeli military had earlier told Palestinians to temporarily evacuate a designated humanitarian zone in Khan Younis's southern neighbourhoods so it could "forcefully operate" there, saying they should relocate to a humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi.
It was the second evacuation order issued in a week for the humanitarian zone, a 60-square-kilometre area blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, the UN and humanitarian groups say.
According to Israeli estimates, about 1.8 million Palestinians are currently sheltering in the zone after being uprooted multiple times during Israel's punishing 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.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said it was increasingly difficult to know how many people would be affected by the evacuation order because those sheltering in the humanitarian zone were constantly being displaced.
"Referring to the orders as evacuation orders don't do any justice to what this means," said Juliette Touma, the agency's director of communications.
"These are forced displacement orders. What happens is when people have these orders, they have very little time to move."
Elsewhere in Gaza, five Palestinians were killed by an Israeli air strike on a house in Al-Bureij refugee camp, while four others were killed in another strike on a house in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, medics said.
UN and humanitarian officials accuse Israel of using disproportionate force in the war and of failing to ensure civilians have safe places to go, charges which it denies.
On Friday, the Israeli military said its troops had battled Palestinian fighters in Khan Younis and destroyed tunnels and other infrastructure, as they sought to suppress small militant units that have continued to hit Israeli troops with mortar fire.
The continued fighting, more than nine months after the start of Israel's invasion of Gaza following the Hamas-led October 7 terror attack, underlined the difficulty the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is having eliminating Hamas fighters.
Around 1,200 people were killed and 250 were taken hostage in the October 7 attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 39,000 Palestinians have died in the ensuing invasion of Gaza, according to Gaza health authorities, who do not distinguish between fighters and non-combatants.
Reuters/AP
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