CAIRO: An Israeli air strike hit two schools in Gaza City on Sunday, killing at least 25 people, the Palestinian official news agency said, while the Israeli military said it struck a military compound embedded in the schools.
An Israeli air strike hit a tent camp inside a hospital in central Gaza earlier in the day. Gaza health officials said at least 44 Palestinians were killed on Sunday, the day after a round of talks in Cairo ended without result.
Footage circulated on Palestinian media showed bodies scattered inside the yard of one of two blast-wrecked schools as residents rushed to carry casualties, including children, and loaded them into ambulance vehicles that took them to at least two nearby hospitals.
The Palestinian official news agency WAFA and Hamas media said dozens were wounded in addition to the 25 fatalities in the schools of Hassan Salama and Al Nasser, which housed Palestinian displaced families. They said the strike destroyed several structures inside the facilities.
Earlier in the day, an Israeli strike inside the Al Aqsa Hospital compound started a fire, and wounded at least 18 people as well as killed five, medical authorities said.
The hospital compound is in Deir Al Balah, an area crowded with thousands of people displaced by fighting in other parts of the enclave.
Elsewhere in Deir Al Balah, three Palestinians were killed when an Israeli missile struck a house. Separate Israeli strikes killed eight others inside their home in Jabalia camp in northern Gaza City and three inside a car.
Residents in areas southeast of the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis and to the north of Rafah, where there was heavy fighting last month, reported receiving evacuation orders from the Israeli military.
Meanwhile, urgent calls for foreign nationals to leave Lebanon grew on Sunday with France warning of "a highly volatile" situation as Iran and its allies ready their response to high-profile killings blamed on Israel.
Hezbollah movement, which has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces since the Gaza war broke out in October, announced its fighters had fired a barrage of rockets at Israel's north overnight.
The Israeli military said 30 projectiles were launched from Lebanon, with most of them intercepted.
France, Canada and Jordan were among the latest governments to call for their citizens to leave Lebanon. —Agencies
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
