Gaza’s civil defense agency said at least 28 people, including children, were killed in a wave of Israeli military attacks across the Gaza Strip.
The agency said a school for displaced families was among the facilities attacked, killing eight people, including four children, over the weekend.
It came as the United Nations issued a call for Israel to stop attacks near a hospital in northern Gaza.
The Israeli military claims a Hamas command center is located inside the Musa bin Nusair campus in Gaza City and has not commented on reports of hospital attacks.
“Hamas systematically violates international law,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on social media, adding that Israel’s response would be “to act with force and determination.” center against terrorist organizations”.
Gaza civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP news agency that the school had been repurposed as a shelter for Palestinians displaced by the war.
Abu, a displaced man who was staying at the school, told BBC Arabic that the attack happened while he was sleeping.
“We were sleeping peacefully when we suddenly woke up because we heard a very powerful explosion,” he said.
Another man, Mahmoud, said he was sleeping in a tent in the school yard when the attack happened.
“Rocks and shrapnel were flying everywhere, the wall of the school fell on our heads,” he told BBC Arabic.
On Sunday, Pope Francis condemned Israel’s attacks on Gaza for the second day in a row.
He expressed pain at the thought of “such cruelty, of machine guns shooting at children, bombing schools and hospitals”.
Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, said the hospital’s generator was hit and claimed the Israeli army was targeting the fuel tank.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, issued a call for the IDF to stop attacks in the vicinity of the hospital.
He said in a statement on social media that Saturday night’s reports of a “bombing near Kamal Adwan Hospital and the order to evacuate the hospital are extremely worrying.”
“We call for an immediate ceasefire in the vicinity of the hospital and to protect patients and medical staff.”
The hospital’s director also released a statement saying Israeli forces were treating the hospital “as if we were a military facility”.
“Anyone who steps outside the hospital is at risk of being targeted,” said Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya.
He added that relocating hospital operations would endanger patients and called for medical staff to “be allowed to operate without the risk of being evacuated”.
Israel has not commented on information about the evacuation order.
The BBC has approached the IDF for comment.
Palestinian groups involved in the fighting told the BBC that The ceasefire agreement is “closer than ever”.
Than 45,000 Palestinians died during the 14-month war between Israel and Hamas, according to data from the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.
The war began when gunmen led by Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, leaving about 1,200 people dead and another 251 held hostage.
