At least 15 Palestinians were killed on Saturday in an Israeli air strike on a school sheltering displaced people in the Sheikh Radwan area of Gaza City, Hamas said, hours after two attacks in the occupied West Bank killed nine militants, including a local Hamas commander.
The Israeli military claimed the school was being used as a Hamas command center to hide militants and manufacture weapons. Meanwhile, Hamas denied Israeli claims that it operates from civilian facilities such as schools and hospitals.
The Israeli military said the first of two air strikes on the West Bank hit a vehicle near the town of Tulkarem, targeting a militant group that was planning an attack.
A Hamas statement said one of those killed was a commander of its Tulkaram Brigade, while its ally Islamic Jihad claimed the other four killed in the attack were its fighters.
Hours later, a second air strike in the area targeted another group of militants who opened fire on troops during a counter-terrorism operation in Tulkaram, the Israeli military said.
Earlier on Saturday, Israeli attacks killed six people in a house south of Rafah and two others in Gaza City, Gaza health officials said.
The Israeli military said its forces attacked militants in Rafah and elsewhere and destroyed Hamas infrastructure.
The latest attacks in the Palestinian territories come amid growing tensions between Israel and Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, raising fears of an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.
The United States and international partners including France, Britain, Italy and Egypt continued diplomatic contacts on Saturday to prevent regional tensions from escalating further.
Hamas said it had launched a “broad consultation process” to choose a new leader, three days after the killing in Tehran of Ismail Haniyeh, the face of the group’s international diplomacy. Iran and Hamas have blamed Israel and vowed to retaliate. Israel has neither claimed nor denied responsibility.
At least 39,550 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military operation in Gaza, according to Gaza health officials.
According to Israeli figures, the offensive began after a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October that left 1,200 people dead and 250 abducted.
A high-level Israeli delegation made a brief visit to Cairo on Saturday in an effort to restart Gaza ceasefire talks, Egyptian airports authority sources said. The Israeli officials returned to Israel a few hours later, Israeli media reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office accused Hamas of trying to change the “outline” of a potential agreement, citing a proposal put forward by US President Joe Biden in May. Hamas accused Netanyahu of not wanting to stop the war.
With agency input