At least 16 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinian families in central Gaza on Saturday, the Palestinian health ministry said, in an attack Israel said had targeted militants.

The health ministry said the attack on the school in Al-Nuseirat killed at least 16 people and wounded more than 50, Reuters reported.

The Israeli military said it took precautions to minimize risk to civilians before it targeted the gunmen who were using the area as a hideout to plan and carry out attacks against soldiers. Hamas denied its fighters were there.

At the scene, Ayman al-Atouneh said he saw children among the dead. “We came here running to see the targeted area, we saw bodies of children, in pieces, this is a playground, there was a trampoline here, there were swing-sets, and vendors,” he said.

Mahmoud Basal, spokesman of the Gaza Civil Emergency Service, said in a statement that the number of dead could rise because many of the wounded were in critical condition.

The attack meant no place in the enclave was safe for families who leave their houses to seek shelters, he said.

Al-Nuseirat, one of Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, was the site of stepped-up Israeli bombardment on Saturday. An air strike earlier on a house in the camp killed at least 10 people and wounded many others, according to medics.

In its daily update of people killed in the nearly nine-month-old war, the Gaza health ministry said Israeli military strikes across the enclave killed at least 29 Palestinians in the past 24 hours and wounded 100 others.

Among those killed in separate air strikes on Saturday were five local journalists, raising the toll of journalists killed since Oct. 7 to 158, according to the Hamas-led Gaza government media office.

Gaza health authorities say more than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive. The health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants but officials say most the dead are civilians.

Israel has lost 323 soldiers in Gaza and says at least a third of the Palestinian dead are fighters.

Israel launched its offensive, aimed at eliminating Hamas, in response to a Hamas-led assault on Israel on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and over 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

RAFAH OPERATIONS

Israeli forces, which have deepened their incursions into Rafah, in the south of the enclave near the border with Egypt, killed four Palestinian policemen and wounded eight others, in an air strike on their vehicle on Saturday, health officials said.

A statement issued by the Hamas-run interior ministry said the four included Fares Abdel-Al, the head of the police force in western Rafah neighbourhood of Tel Al-Sultan.

The Israeli military said forces continued “intelligence-base operations” in Rafah, destroyed several underground structures, seized weapons and equipment, and killed several Palestinian gunmen.

Israel has said its operations in Rafah aim to eradicate the last Hamas armed wing battalions.

The Israeli military said it eliminated a Hamas rocket cell in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza that operated from inside a humanitarian-designated area. It said it carried out a precise strike after taking measures to ensure civilians were unharmed.

The armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said fighters attacked Israeli forces in several areas of Gaza with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs.

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Efforts to secure a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza were gathering momentum on Friday after Hamas made a revised proposal on the terms of a deal and Israel said it would resume stalled negotiations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday he would send a delegation to resume negotiations, and an Israeli official said his country’s team would be led by the head of the Mossad intelligence agency, Reuters reported.

A source in Israel’s negotiating team, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was a real chance of achieving agreement after Hamas made its revised proposal on the terms of a deal, received by Israel on Wednesday.

“The proposal put forward by Hamas includes a very significant breakthrough,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity and giving no details.

The Israeli response to the Hamas proposal, submitted via mediators, was in marked contrast to past instances during the nearly nine-month-old war in Gaza, when Israel said conditions attached by the militant Islamist group were not acceptable.

A Palestinian official close to the internationally mediated peace efforts told Reuters the new Hamas proposal could lead to a framework agreement if it is embraced by Israel.

He said Hamas was no longer demanding as a pre-condition an Israeli commitment to permanently cease fire before the signing of an agreement, and would allow negotiations to achieve that throughout a first six-week phase.

“Should the sides need more time to seal an agreement on a permanent ceasefire, the two sides should agree there would be no return to the fighting until they do that,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

Hamas has previously said any deal must end the war and bring a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and sought the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel in exchange for Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

Israel has previously said it will accept only temporary pauses in the fighting until Hamas, which governs the small, densely populated Gaza Strip, is eradicated.

Egyptian sources acknowledged there had been a shift but suggested that the core issue of commitment to a permanent ceasefire was still outstanding.

In the latest fighting in Gaza, residents said Israeli tanks had pushed shortly before dawn into the Al-Nasser neighbourhood in the northern part of Rafah, near the border with Egypt.

Israel said its operations in Rafah were aimed at dismantling the last battalions of Hamas’ armed wing.

An Israeli air strike on a house killed five Palestinians, including three children, in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, Gaza medics said.

Five Palestinians were also killed in an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin on Friday, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Top Democrats on Sunday ruled out the possibility of replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee after a feeble debate performance and called on party members to focus instead on the consequences of a second Donald Trump presidency.

After days of hand-wringing about Biden’s poor night on stage debating Trump, Democratic leaders firmly rejected calls for their party to choose a younger presidential candidate for the Nov. 5 election, Reuters reported.

Biden, 81, meanwhile, was huddling with family members at the Camp David presidential retreat on Sunday.

The New York Times cited people close to the situation as saying that Biden’s family were urging him to stay in the race and keep fighting. The paper said some members of his clan privately expressed exasperation at how his staff prepared him for Thursday night’s event.

A drumbeat of calls for Biden to step aside has continued since Thursday and a post-debate CBS poll showed a 10-point jump in the number of Democrats who believe Biden should not be running for president, to 46% from 36% in February.

“The unfortunate truth is that Biden should withdraw from the race, for the good of the nation he has served so admirably for half a century,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said in an editorial on Sunday. “The shade of retirement is now necessary for President Biden.”

Democratic leaders rejected this.

“Absolutely not,” responded Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, one of several Democrats seen as a possible replacement for Biden.

“Bad debates happen,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press program. “The question is, ‘Who has Donald Trump ever shown up for other than himself and people like himself?’ I’m with Joe Biden, and it’s our assignment to make sure that he gets over the finish line come November.”

House of Representatives Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who could become speaker next year if his party can take control of the House in November, acknowledged that Biden had suffered a setback, but this was “nothing more than a setup for a comeback.”

“So the moment that we’re in right now is a comeback moment,” he told MSNBC.

Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, a leading Biden surrogate, told ABC’s This Week program Biden needed to stay in the race to ensure Trump’s defeat.

“I think he’s the only Democrat who can beat Donald Trump,” Coons said.