Gaza Rescuers say Israeli Strikes Kill 35

The violence came even as Palestinian groups involved in the fighting said a ceasefire deal was "closer than ever".

Israel has faced growing criticism of its actions during the war, triggered by Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023 attack, including from rights groups accusing it of "acts of genocide" which the Israeli government strongly denies.

Pope Francis denounced on Sunday the "cruelty" of Israel's bombardment, highlighting the deaths of children and attacks on schools and hospitals in Gaza.

It was his second such comment in as many days, despite Israel's accusing the pontiff of "double standards."

"Israel has violated all the rules of war in the Gaza Strip," the commissioner-general of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said Sunday.

Philippe Lazzarini highlighted the ongoing violations in the enclave, where Israel has continued its attacks for the past 14 months.

“Escalation over the past 24 hours. More civilians are reported killed and injured,” he said in a post on his X account.

“Attacks on schools and hospitals have been commonplace. The world must not become numb. All wars have rules. All of those rules have been broken.”

On the ground in Gaza, civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said at least 13 people were killed in an air strike on a house in central Gaza's Deir el-Balah belonging to the Abu Samra family.

An AFP photographer saw residents searching through the debris for survivors, while others looked for belongings they could salvage.

In a nearby compound, bodies covered in blankets lay on the sandy ground.

The military said it targeted an Islamic Jihad militant who was operating in Deir el-Balah.

"According to an initial examination, the reported number of casualties resulting from the strike does not align with the information held by the IDF (military)," it said to AFP in a statement, which did not give its own toll.

"We are... losing loved ones every day," said Deir el-Balah resident Naim al-Ramlawi.

"I pray to God that a truce will be reached soon" and would allow Gazans to finally "live a decent life, instead of this miserable life", he said.

The military also confirmed a separate strike further north, on a school in Gaza City.

Bassal said eight people including four children were killed in the attack on the school, which had been repurposed as a shelter for Palestinians displaced by the war.

It was the latest of numerous similar strikes against schools-turned-shelters during the war.

The military says the facilities are used by Hamas Palestinian militants.

In this case it said it carried out a "precise strike" that targeted a Hamas "command and control centre" inside the school compound.

 'Significant risk' at hospital 

AFP images showed mangled concrete slabs and iron beams strewn amid patches of blood at the damaged school building.

Bassal said in a statement that a separate strike, overnight into Sunday, killed three people in Rafah, in the south.

And a drone strike on Sunday morning hit a car in Gaza City, killing four people, the spokesman added.

Late on Sunday, the civil defense agency said seven people were killed when Israeli drones struck tents in the humanitarian area of Al-Mawasi in western Khan Yunis, while the Israeli military said it had targeted a "Hamas terrorist".

Israel in early October began a major military operation in Gaza's north, which it said aimed to prevent Hamas from regrouping there.

A United Nations official who visited Gaza City said late last month that people were living in "inhumane conditions with severe food shortages and terrible sanitary conditions".

On Sunday a hospital director in northern Gaza said Israeli forces were bombing buildings near the facility.

Hossam Abu Safia, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, said in a statement that the facility's generators were hit and that "the army is attempting to target the fuel tank, which is full of fuel and poses a significant fire risk."

Contacted by AFP, the military said it was unaware of any strikes on the hospital, one of only two still operating in northern Gaza.

Israel launched a genocidal war on Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023 that has killed more than 45,200 people, mostly women and children.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last month for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the enclave.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on Gaza.

Hamas and two other Palestinian armed groups said in a rare joint statement on Saturday that an agreement to end the bloodshed was "closer than ever", after Qatari-hosted talks that followed months of stalled negotiations.

Source: HDN