GAZA / RAMALLAH - At least 15 Palestinians were killed and dozens of others injured by an Israeli airstrike on a school in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City on Saturday, Hamas said.
Israeli warplanes attacked the Hamama School, which shelters thousands of displaced people, Hamas said in a statement.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Saturday that the Israeli Air Force struck "terrorists" operating within a Hamas command and control center, adding that the compound was known as the Hamama school in the northern Gaza Strip in the past.
"The Hamas terrorist organization systematically violates international law by operating from within civilian infrastructure, brutally exploiting the civilian population and institutions as human shields for their terror activities," it said.
Israel has been launching a large-scale attacks against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to retaliate against a Hamas rampage through the southern Israeli border on Oct 7, 2023, during which about 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 were taken hostage.
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The Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has risen to 39,550, Gaza-based health authorities said in a statement on Saturday.
Israel estimates that there are about 134 Israeli detainees in Gaza, while Hamas announced that 70 of them were killed in random Israeli raids.
Meanwhile, Egypt on Saturday demanded Israel withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor and the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing and halt the ongoing Israeli offensive on the besieged Gaza Strip, Egyptian sources told Xinhua on Saturday on condition of anonymity.
The Egyptian demands were presented on Saturday in a meeting with an Israeli security delegation visiting Cairo for talks with the Egyptian side on a ceasefire deal between Israel and Gaza-ruling Hamas.
Earlier in the day, an Israeli delegation, including the heads of the Israeli Security Agency and the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, arrived in Cairo for negotiations on a possible ceasefire deal that includes an exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, according to the sources.
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The Israeli army took control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing in May, which resulted in halting the entry of humanitarian aid trucks from Egypt into Gaza.
It is the first Israeli delegation to arrive in Egypt after the assassination of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday in the Iranian capital Tehran. Hamas accused Israel of carrying out the assassination.
Egypt, along with Qatar and the United States, is leading mediation efforts to reach a truce and a hostage-prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas, with the purpose of ending up with a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Also on Saturday, four Palestinians were killed by an Israeli drone that targeted a vehicle near the northern West Bank city of Tulkarm, the Palestinian official news agency WAFA reported.
The vehicle, traveling between the town of Bal'a and the Aktaba suburb east of Tulkarm, was completely engulfed in flames following the attack, WAFA said, adding that Israeli forces then surrounded the vehicle and prevented ambulance crews from reaching it.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Saturday that in a joint IDF, Israeli Security Agency (ISA), and Israel Police "counterterrorism" operation, a "terrorist cell" was eliminated during an encounter with "terrorists" in Tulkarm.
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This incident came just after five Palestinians, including a Hamas commander, were killed in an Israeli raid on the town of Zeita, north of Tulkarm, on Saturday morning.
Amid the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank has also been witnessing rising tensions between the Israeli army and Palestinians. Since Oct 7, 2023, more than 590 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Health Ministry.
