Israeli strike in the Golan Heights devastated by a rocket attack on a sports complex on the same day that Israeli strike killed a school building

TEL AVIV, Israel, and GAZA STRIP — A rocket hit a sports complex filled with children playing soccer in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights region Saturday afternoon, on the same day that an Israeli strike in Gaza devastated a school building and killed dozens of people.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,200 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The U.N. estimated in February that there were some 17,000 children that were separated from their families in the territory.

Many Palestinians fled from the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah, after the Israeli military imposed restrictions on movement to the southern parts of Gaza.

Anas Baba, an NPR reporter, witnessed what happened after the strike with blood all around, with pieces of flesh visible on the stairs and residents trying to flee.

Video captured by Baba shows the bodies of injured children being carried away on donkey carts. Baba found several very young children in the hallways of nearby hospitals.

The crowded school complex had around 4,000 people sheltering there, and according to Gazan health authorities part of the targeted site was also being used as a field hospital. No warning of the strike was provided in advance to those inside.

The military ordered a new area to be evacuated in Gaza ahead of Saturday’s planned strike. Israel said that there was rocket fire from the area.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Children’s Families During a Skirminado with Israel’s Armed Forces

Later Saturday, the Israeli ambulance service said a rocket launched from southern Lebanon killed 11 children, with around 30 injured, several of those very seriously.

Israel says Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Lebanese militia, launched around 40 rockets from southern Lebanon toward northern Israel Saturday, with the most of them intercepted and shot down.

A spokesperson for the Israeli military, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said it was the deadliest single attack on an Israeli target since Oct. 7, the date of the Hamas-led attack on Israel that sparked the current war in Gaza.

The incident has prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was briefed on the situation while in Washington, D.C., to return to Israel from the U.S. earlier than planned. He will convene a cabinet meeting after his return.

In a statement issued by his office, Netanyahu said the entire nation of Israel embraced the children’s families and the entire Druze community during the difficult hour.

After months of skirmishes, alongside artillery, airstrikes and rocket attacks that have been traded back and forth across Israel’s border with Lebanon, many analysts and regional leaders have expressed concerns about a significant military escalation between Hezbollah and the Israel military.

Despite a public message from Hezbollah in which it categorically denied involvement, saying the group had “absolutely nothing to do with the incident,” Netanyahu warned in his office statement that, “the State of Israel will not let this pass in silence. We will not overlook this.”

According to the speaker, Hezbollah’s denial that it was involved shows it is committed to avoiding violence against civilians and proves Lebanon wasn’t responsible.

The Lebanese government said the targeting of civilians is a “violation of international law” and that it condemned “all acts of violence and attacks against all civilians.”

A Gaza school shelters Israel air strikes: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the U.S. vows to press ahead with the war and Israel’s commitments to total victory

Associated Press journalists saw a dead toddler in an ambulance and bodies covered with blankets. Inside the school, shattered walls gaped and classrooms were in ruins. People searched for victims in rubble strewn with pillows and other signs of habitation.

Officials from the U.S., Egypt, Qatar and Israel are scheduled to meet in Italy on Sunday to discuss ongoing cease-fire negotiations. CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to meet Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani, Mossad director David Barnea and Egyptian spy chief Abbas Kamel, according to officials from the U.S. and Egypt who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the plans.

U.S. officials on Friday said Israel and Hamas agree on the basic framework of the three-phase deal under consideration. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his speech to the U.S. Congress vowed to press ahead with the war until Israel achieves “total victory.”

After the Israeli strike on the school, Palestinian officials condemned the speech. The reception from Netanyahu’s supporters in the U.S. constituted a “green light” for Israel to continue its offensive, according to a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority.

He said that there was only a few condemnations that would force the occupation to stop its attacks on the school.

The military said it would conduct an operation against Hamas in the city and in the crowded tent camp where thousands of Palestinians have been told to seek refuge.

At least three health centers in Gaza stopped providing care because of the order to evacuate, as a result of problems such as shortages of supplies and piled-up waste.

Source: At least 30 dead in Gaza after an Israeli airstrike hits a school used as a shelter

The Gaza Zone is Not a safe place for civilians, but Israel is a safer place than any other: Palestinians mourned overnight in Zawaida

According to Israeli estimates, almost two million people are in the zone because they were uprooted many times during the air and ground campaign. In November, the military said the area could still be struck and that it was “not a safe zone, but it is a safer place than any other” in Gaza.

“These are forced displacement orders,” said Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications. When people have these orders, they have little time to move.

Farther north, Palestinians mourned seven killed by Israeli airstrikes overnight on Zawaida, in central Gaza. Parents and their two children and a mother and her two children were wrapped in white burial shrouds as friends and neighbors wept.

In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a 17-year-old was killed and nine other people wounded after an Israeli drone strike in Balata camp in Nablus. The Israeli military said one of its aircraft attacked from the air while in Nablus.

Most of the 1,200 people who were killed in an assault on southern Israel were civilians, but Hamas took about 250 hostages. About 115 are still in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.