PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES — Israel pressed its bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Saturday as a war cabinet minister looked set to carry through on his threat to quit a government under mounting pressure over its conduct of the military campaign against the Palestinian enclave.
Strikes rattled various parts of Gaza and appeared to be focused on central areas of the territory, witnesses and Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists reported.
The onslaught persisted, despite scrutiny on Israel after its warplanes on Thursday attacked a United Nations-run school that a Gaza hospital said killed 37 people.
The Israeli military acknowledged it conducted the strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp, saying it targeted a Hamas base and killed 17 "terrorists."
The Palestinian militant group, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, accused the army of providing "false information." The group said three people Israel listed as dead were actually still alive.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which ran the school, condemned Israel for striking a facility it said had been housing 6,000 displaced people.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the agency said the "school-turned-shelter" had been hit "without prior warning."
"Targeting UN premises or using [them] for military purposes cannot become the new norm. This must stop and all those responsible be held accountable," it added.
Israel accuses Hamas and its allies in Gaza of using civilian infrastructure, including UN-run facilities, as operational centers — charges the militants deny.
'Defenseless'
The war, now in its ninth month, has brought widespread devastation to Gaza, with one in 20 people dead or wounded, according to the Health Ministry there. Most of Gaza's 2.4 million inhabitants are displaced.
This grim reality was underscored by a strike whose aftermath, depicted in an AFP video, saw men salvaging what they could from a bombed-out Gaza City building and carrying away a shrouded body in a debris-strewn alley.
Maher al-Mughair, who lives nearby, recounted the attack on Friday, saying: "We heard what sounded like a drone firing a missile, followed by another coming from an F-16 fighter jet."
"So we checked and found women and children in pieces. What did the children and women do wrong? They are defenseless people, merely civilians," he told AFPTV.
In the same city on Saturday, five people were killed and seven wounded when an Israeli warplane bombed the Mhana family's home in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, Gaza emergency services said.
Elsewhere, medics at Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital said six people were killed and others wounded in an Israeli rocket attack on the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, where witnesses said gun battles raged.
The Israeli army said it struck "dozens of terrorist cells and infrastructures" in Deir al-Balah and Bureij in the past day. Troops were also carrying out operations in Rafah.
Political fallout
As a result of its relentless military campaign in Gaza, Israel faces growing diplomatic isolation, with international court cases accusing it of war crimes and several European countries recognizing a Palestinian state.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan said on Friday he was "disgusted" that the Israeli military would be on an upcoming UN list of countries and armed forces that fail to protect children during war.
A diplomatic source later told AFP that Hamas, as well as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, would also be included in the annual UN report, which highlights human rights violations against children in conflict zones and is expected by the end of June.
Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad are designated as terrorist organizations by several countries, including the US and the European Union.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is due to address the US Congress next month, also faces pressure from within his right-wing government.
The office of war cabinet member Benny Gantz has announced a news conference for Saturday, the deadline he gave Netanyahu last month to approve a postwar plan for Gaza.
Israeli media have speculated that Gantz, a centrist former military chief who had been one of Netanyahu's main rivals before joining the war cabinet, was likely to carry through on a threat to resign.
However, any such move is not expected to affect the stability of Netanyahu's government, a coalition of his right-wing Likud with far-right and ultra-orthodox Jewish parties.
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