Authorities in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip said today that more than 100 people were killed and dozens wounded in fresh airstrikes targeting a school where displaced people had taken refuge in Gaza City, two days after bombing two others. school buildings.

The Israeli army, for its part, announced that it had hit a Hamas “command center”.

According to the information service of the Hamas government in the Palestinian enclave, cited by WAFA, the shelling “targeted displaced people who were performing the morning prayer”, which explains “the number of victims”, which according to the source exceeds “100 dead”. .

A representative of the civil protection, for his part, told AFP about “90 to 100 dead and dozens of injured”. He spoke of “three strikes” at the school at Tabin, confirming that “Palestinian displaced persons” had taken refuge there. Earlier the same spokesman, Mahmoud Basal, referred to “40 witnesses”.

THE Israeli army announced that he carried out a “precision strike” against “terrorists” who were “operating”, according to him, in a “command and control center” installed inside the school at Tabin, next to the Daraz Tufa mosque. It assured that before proceeding with the bombing it took “measures to reduce the risk of harm to civilians”, including “the use of precision munitions, aerial surveillance and intelligence gathering”.

On the other hand, Mr. Bassal denounced a “horrible massacre”, describing how rescue crews saw bodies in flames.

“Teams are trying to contain the fire, retrieve the bodies of the witnesses and rescue the injured,” he added.

The day before Thursday, civil protection in Gaza announced that Israeli shelling of two more schools in Gaza City claimed the lives of 18 people.

In these cases as well, the Israeli army reported that Hamas “command centers” operated in the school buildings.

Israel, although its government said it had agreed to resume negotiations next week with a view to concluding a cease-fire agreement, launched a new operation in Khan Younis yesterday, amid pressure from mediating nations seeking to prevent a flare-up in the Middle East.

The day before yesterday, Iran, which supports Hamas and other armed organizations in the region, accused Israel of seeking to “spread” the war that broke out in October.

After ten months of war, fighting in the Palestinian enclave between the Israeli armed forces and the military wing of Hamas continues, particularly in areas Israel claimed it controlled.

The Israeli military said yesterday it was involved in fighting, both “on the ground” and “underground” in Khan Younis, a large city in the southern Gaza Strip that has been largely reduced to rubble. He spoke of “more than 30” airstrikes against Hamas “targets”, positions or facilities.

The day before yesterday, he ordered the hasty evacuation of the civilian population from the eastern districts of the city. Thrown into the streets for the umpteenth time, thousands of people left, on foot, in cars and carts, crammed onto carts with mattresses and luggage…

“We have been displaced 15 times, enough,” said one of them, Mohamed Abdin. Another, Ahmed al-Najjar, did not hide his anger: “Enough with the humiliation. Stop this farce.”

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated yesterday that “at least 60,000 Palestinians have been displaced in western Khan Younis during the last 72 hours”, following orders for the urgent evacuation of civilians, which also affect areas in the northern part of the enclave.

The war has caused humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Striphave forced the vast majority of the population of 2.4 million to flee and have driven the small enclave to the brink of famine, according to the United Nations. And escalated the tension even more to Middle Eastwhere it is threatened by its spread between Iran and armed organizations supported by Israel and its allies, the main one of which is the USA, on the other.

Concern over the risk of conflagration in the Middle East further increased following the assassination in the early hours of July 31st in Tehran of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was extradited to Israel by Iran, and a few hours earlier on the evening of July 30th. , a leading figure in the military arm of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Fouad Soukr, in an Israeli bombing of an apartment building in a southern suburb of Beirut.

Ceasefire talks

The day before Thursday, the three mediating countries, Qatar, the US and Egypt, called on the parties to resume talks to conclude a ceasefire agreement next Thursday, August 15, reminding that there is already a framework agreement “on the table at the moment” ” and all that remains is to agree on “the details of its implementation”.

Israel’s government agreed to “send on August 15 a delegation of negotiators to the location to be determined in order to finalize the details and implement the framework agreement,” according to a statement released by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s services.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallad stressed that it is “important to quickly reach an agreement that will guarantee the return of the hostages” held in Gaza.

Hamas this week named its leader Yahya Sinuarone of the most wanted persons in Israel, who considers him one of the masterminds of the October 7 attack, a development that is believed to have made indirect negotiations even more difficult.

The head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff responsible for the Middle East (CENTCOM), General Eric Kurila, began his second visit to Israel this week yesterday, as Washington announced further reinforcements of its military presence in the Middle East.

Concern over the risk of regional conflagration remains high, particularly in Lebanon, where Israeli military jets have repeatedly made low-altitude overflights in recent days and broken the sound barrier over Beirut.

Crossfires on the border between Hezbollah and the Israeli army have been practically daily since October 8, the day after the war broke out in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7 killed 1,198 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data. Of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 111 are still being held hostage in Gaza, but 39 are believed to be dead, according to the Israeli military.

In retaliation, Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, which the US and EU designate as a terrorist organization.

Large-scale military operations in the Gaza Strip have since claimed the lives of at least 39,699 people, according to the latest official tally released Friday by Hamas’ health ministry.