At least 52 killed in Gaza as Israel escalates attacks on Gaza City | Gaza News

Israel’s defence minister warns that Gaza City will be destroyed unless Hamas yields to Israel’s terms for ending the war.

At least 52 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza, medical sources told Al Jazeera, including 36 killed in Gaza City where Israel was escalating attacks in the lead-up to a broader planned offensive.

An Israeli air strike hit a school in Sheikh Radwan, a Gaza City neighbourhood where tens of Palestinians were seeking shelter in makeshift tents in the schoolyard. At least 12 civilians were killed in the attack, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Friday.

Footage circulating on social media and verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency Sanad shows an Israeli quadcopter hovering over a building in Sheikh Radwan as neighbours watch anxiously, before it drops an explosive on its target. The video then cuts to footage of smoke rising from the targeted building.

Another person was killed by Israeli forces in the Tuffah neighbourhood in Gaza City, a medical source at al-Ahli Hospital told Al Jazeera.

Earlier, Israel’s defence minister warned that Gaza’s largest city would be destroyed unless Hamas yielded to Israel’s terms for ending the war.

“The gates of hell will soon open on the heads of Hamas’ murderers and rapists in Gaza – until they agree to Israel’s conditions for ending the war,” Israel Katz wrote in a post on X.

Katz restated Israel’s ceasefire demands, which include the release of all captives and Hamas’s complete disarmament. Hamas has said it would release captives in exchange for ending the war, but rejects disarmament without the creation of a Palestinian state.

In response to the latest ceasefire proposal, accepted by Hamas and brokered by Qatar and Egypt, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said he had instructed officials “to begin immediate negotiations” to release remaining captives and end the war.

Yet Netanyahu also confirmed that he would authorise the military to mount a major operation to seize Gaza City, which could start within days.

While many Israelis fear an assault could doom about 20 captives deemed to be alive, Netanyahu maintains the offensive is the surest way to free captives and achieve the war objective of destroying Hamas.

‘Unbearable grief and pain’

Al Jazeera correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum said that while Gaza City was being pounded especially hard, Israeli attacks were continuing relentlessly across the Gaza Strip.

“It was another deadly night in Gaza, and this morning is marked by grief and unbearable pain, clearly written on the faces of victims’ relatives and emergency responders who spent the night rushing to calls across the Strip,” Abu Azzoum said, reporting from the central city of Deir el-Balah.

“For Palestinians on the ground, these military actions send a clear signal that no matter where they move, no corner of Gaza is spared from any potential Israeli attack.”

An Israeli drone strike on a makeshift tent in the southern city of Khan Younis killed one woman and four children, sources at the Nasser Medical Complex said.

Another Palestinian was killed and others were injured after the Israeli army struck the Jabalia al-Balad area of northern Gaza, according to sources at al-Shifa Hospital.

At least 52 people were killed since dawn in Israeli attacks across on Friday, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

Among those killed were five people who were seeking aid, the sources said. One Palestinian aid seeker was killed and others were injured in an Israeli shooting near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, according to medical sources at the northern Gaza’s al-Awda Hospital.

Since May 27, when Israel introduced the new aid distribution mechanism run by the controversial United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the Health Ministry estimates at least 2,036 aid seekers have been killed.