Israeli strikes pounded a Gaza refugee camp on Friday following a deadly attack on a United Nations (U.N.)-run school, as the war ignited by Hamas' Oct. 7 incursion on Israel entered its ninth month.
The conflict has claimed thousands of lives, devastated much of the Gaza Strip, displaced most of its 2.4 million residents and left them facing starvation.
Diplomatic efforts to broker the first ceasefire since a brief pause in November have stalled, just a week after U.S. President Joe Biden proposed a new three-stage roadmap.
Hamas has yet to respond to Biden's plan.
Israel has shown willingness to engage in talks but remains steadfast in its goal of dismantling the Palestinian group.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, said at least 37 people were killed in Thursday's Israeli strike on the U.N.-run school in the Nuseirat camp.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets killed nine Hamas members in three classrooms where about 30 members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad had been hiding.
UNRWA said hundreds of displaced Palestinians had been sheltering at the school, which was "hit without prior warning."
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the strike as "another horrific example of the price that civilians are paying."
Strikes across Gaza
The U.S., which provides Israel with $3.8 billion in annual military aid, urged its ally to be "fully" transparent about the strike.
"The government of Israel has said that they are going to release more information about this strike, including the names of those who died in it. We expect them to be fully transparent in making that information public," said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
Israel accuses Hamas and its allies in Gaza of using schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure, including facilities run by UNRWA, as operational centers—charges the militants deny.
A day after the school was struck, eyewitnesses said the Nuseirat refugee camp came under attack again as Gaza faced Israeli assaults from land, sea and air.
A source at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said the Isa family home in the Bureij refugee camp was targeted, wounding several people.
Witnesses also confirmed Israeli strikes east of Deir al-Balah, as well as intensive fire from army vehicles near the Bureij camp, where a blaze was raging.
The Israeli military said it eliminated dozens of Hamas members in eastern Bureij and eastern Deir al-Balah and continued operations in the southern city of Rafah.
In Gaza City, casualties were reported from an Israeli strike on the Ashram family home near Al-Salam Mosque, according to a source at Baptist Hospital.
Six people were killed and several wounded in an Israeli strike on the Wafati home in the Maghazi camp said a source at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Fighter jets targeted the Al-Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, sources in the city on the border with Egypt said.
Gaza also came under fire from the sea, with Israeli warships bombarding homes in the fishermen's port area, among others, west of Gaza City, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent said.
Osama al-Kahlut of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said "occupation forces and snipers" east of Deir al-Balah were firing on people along Gaza's main thoroughfare.
"Gunfire on Salaheddin Street has severely restricted people's movement, and several wounded people have been evacuated from the area," he told AFP.
Israeli isolation
The war was sparked by Hamas' Oct. 7 incursion on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people.
Hamas members also took 251 hostages, 120 of whom remain in Gaza.
Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 36,654 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.
Israel has faced growing diplomatic isolation, with international court cases accusing it of war crimes and several European countries recognizing a Palestinian state.
Spain, which last week sparked Israeli fury by formally recognizing Palestinian statehood, said Thursday it would become the latest country to join South Africa's case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of "genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has meanwhile accepted an invitation from lawmakers in the United States to address Congress on July 24, a congressional source told AFP.
A week ago, Biden outlined what he labeled an Israeli plan to halt the attacks for six weeks while hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and the delivery of aid into Gaza is stepped up.
G7 powers and Arab states have backed the proposal, with 16 world leaders joining Biden's call for Hamas to accept the deal.
"There is no time to lose. We call on Hamas to close this agreement," the joint statement said.