Israeli Forces Keep Striking in Gaza Alongside Cease-Fire in Lebanon

Alongside Cease-Fire in Lebanon, Israeli Forces Keep Striking in Gaza

While Israel and Hezbollah were finalizing a cease-fire to halt the fighting in Lebanon, Israeli strikes killed 33 people in Gaza, according to local health authorities.

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By Jack Nicas and Iyad Abuheweila

Jack Nicas reported from Jerusalem, and Iyad Abuheweila from Istanbul.

While Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to a cease-fire in Lebanon, the war in Gaza seems far from over.

On Tuesday night into Wednesday, as the cease-fire was being finalized, the Israeli military struck dozens of sites in Gaza that it said were Hamas military structures. The Israeli attacks killed at least 33 people and injured 134 more in Gaza over the period, according to the Gazan health ministry.

Thirteen deaths came in an Israeli strike on Al-Tabaeen in Gaza City, a school complex that has been operating as a shelter, according to Palestinian Civil Defense, which runs emergency response in Gaza. Among the dead were six women, the agency said. A Hamas official, Fawzi Barhoum, said on Facebook that two of his sons also died in the strike.

The Israeli military said that it struck the school to kill Mumin al-Jabari, identifying him as a Hamas sniper who was operating out of a room in the building and had stockpiled weapons there. The military said it aimed to mitigate harm to civilians by using “precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence.”

The military said it also struck sites Hamas used for fighting and storing weapons in northern Gaza, after learning of them in interrogations of militants arrested in the area.

The cease-fire in Lebanon has left many Gazans feeling frustrated and hopeless. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel appears far more reluctant to agree to a truce in Gaza, where Hamas continues to hold roughly 100 hostages, some of them dead. Mr. Netanyahu has vowed to annihilate Hamas in Gaza, but the group has proved resilient, and fighting remains fierce nearly 14 months after the war began.

The result is a humanitarian disaster. More than 44,000 Gazans have died in the war and nearly 105,000 have been injured, according to the Gazan health ministry. The vast majority of the population has been displaced. United Nations officials have warned that hunger and disease are widespread, hospitals are hardly functioning and aid into parts of Gaza has significantly slowed, often restricted by Israeli forces or looted by violent mobs.

Supply shortages have complicated rescue operations. Mahmoud Basal, the spokesman for Palestinian Civil Defense, said that after the strike on Al-Tabaeen school, the agency’s teams could not send crews and equipment to dig victims out because of a lack of fuel. A donation of fuel allowed rescuers to arrive on Wednesday morning.

“We pulled out who we could,” Mr. Basal said. But three people, he said, would only have been reachable by removing the school’s roof, “and that was impossible.”

It was the second time the Israeli military struck Al-Tabaeen school complex. In August, when more than 2,000 displaced people were sheltering at the site, according to Civil Defense officials, a strike killed dozens out of 200 gathered for predawn prayers.

The Israeli military said it killed 30 militants in that strike. Then as now, the military said Hamas was exploiting civilians as human shields.

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