The Latest | Israeli strikes kill at least 18 in central Gaza a day after attack on UN-run school

Overnight Israeli airstrikes in central Gaza killed at least 18 people, including children, a day after 33 were killed at a United Nations-run school sheltering displaced Palestinian families, health officials said Friday.

Strikes hit the Nuseirat and Maghazi refugee camps and Deir al-Balah and Zawaiyda towns, they said. Four children and one woman were among those killed as well as the mayor of the Nuseirat refugee camp, according to hospital records.

Israel’s army said Friday it was continuing operations in parts of Central Gaza. It said its troops had killed dozens of militants, located tunnel shafts and destroyed infrastructure in the area.

The strikes came a day after at least 33 people were killed at a U.N.-run school in the Nuseirat refugee camp which Israel said was being used as a Hamas compound, without providing evidence.

International pressure has been mounting on Israel to limit civilian bloodshed in its war against Hamas. Spain’s foreign minister has announced it would ask a United Nations court for permission to join South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. Israel strongly denies the accusation.

More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed by eight months of Israeli bombardments and ground offensives in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

The war has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and other supplies to Palestinians who are facing widespread hunger. United Nations agencies say over 1 million in Gaza could experience the highest level of starvation by mid-July.

Israel launched the war after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250. Around 80 hostages captured on Oct. 7 are believed to still be alive in Gaza, alongside the remains of 43 others.

Currently:

— Women and children of Gaza are killed less frequently as war’s toll rises, data analysis finds

— How analyzed Gaza Health Ministry ’s death toll data.

— Israeli strike kills at least 33 people at a Gaza school the military claims was being used by Hamas.

— Spain applies to join South Africa’s case at top the U.N. court accusing Israel of genocide.

— A social media effort to draw attention to Rafah surges.

— Israeli settlers in the West Bank were hit with international sanctions. It only emboldened them.

— Yemen’s Houthi rebels unveil solid-fuel ‘Palestine’ missile that resembles Iranian hypersonic.

Follow ’s coverage of the war in Gaza at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Here’s the latest:

GAZA HEALTH OFFICIALS SAY AT LEAST 18 KILLED IN OVERNIGHT ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza — Palestinian health officials say at least 18 people were killed, including children, in Israeli airstrikes overnight across Central Gaza.

Strikes hit the Nuseirat and Maghazi refugee camps and Deir al-Balah and Zawaiyda towns, they said Friday. The bodies were taken to the al-Aqsa hospital where an Associated Press journalist counted them.

Four children and one woman were among those killed as well as the mayor of the Nuseirat refugee camp, according to hospital records.

Israel’s army said Friday it was continuing operations in parts of Central Gaza including eastern Bureji and Deir al-Balah. It said its troops had killed dozens of militants, located tunnel shafts and destroyed infrastructure in the area.

The strikes come a day after at least 33 people were killed at a United Nations-run school sheltering displaced Palestinian families. Israel said the school was being used as a Hamas compound, without providing evidence.

Israel’s military said it was not aware of any civilian casualties in the strike on the school in Nuseirat refugee camp, and later said it had confirmed killing nine militants.

CIVIL RIGHTS GROUP URGES U.S. TO STOP SENDING WEONS FOR USE IN GAZA

The U.S. civil rights group NAACP has called on the Biden administration to end the shipment of weapons to Israel for use in attacks on Gaza.

It said Thursday that President Joe Biden’s three-stage proposal for a cease-fire and the return of Israeli hostages held by Hamas does not go far enough.

“Over the past months, we have been forced to bear witness to unspeakable violence, affecting innocent civilians, which is unacceptable,” President and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement. “It is one thing to call for a cease-fire, it is another to take the measures necessary to work towards liberation for all.”

The group also urged an end of artillery shipments to states that supply weapons to Hamas.

The NAACP appears to be the first legacy U.S. civil rights organization to call for a cease-fire. However, racial justice activists and the Black Lives Matter movement have been calling for a cease-fire since shortly after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.

Militants killed about 1,200 people and took another 250 hostage in the attack.

Since Israel’s offensive in response to that attack, over 36,000 Palestinians have died according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

U.S. IS CIRCULATING A GAZA CEASE-FIRE RESOLUTION AT THE U.N., BUT ISRAEL PRIVATELY OBJECTS

UNITED NATIONS — The United States has circulated a revised Security Council draft resolution that says a permanent cease-fire in the Gaza must be agreed to by Israel and Hamas.

It also spells out a three-phase plan to end the eight-month war and start the reconstruction of the devastated Gaza Strip that it says Israel has accepted and calls on Hamas to accept.

In exchange for the agreement by both parties to a permanent cease-fire, the plan says all Israeli hostages in Gaza will be released and all Israeli forces will withdraw from Gaza.

But Israel is privately objecting to its close ally’s latest attempt to stop the war.

An Israeli official told The Associated Press that the language overlooks Israel’s stated aim of destroying Hamas as a military force. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussion.

Because Israel believes that Hamas will engage in future military attacks, it is wary of signing a document that specifically stipulates a cease-fire, the official said. That language has a more permanent implication than a “cessation of hostilities,” which has also been mentioned in draft discussions.

Israel also objects to proposed language that “rejects any attempt at demographic or territorial change in the Gaza Strip.”

That includes “actions that reduce the territory of Gaza, such as through the permanent establishment officially or unofficially of so-called buffer zones,” which Israel has already said it plans.

Far-right members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have threatened to bring down the coalition if he signs onto a cease-fire deal.

Egyptian and Qatari mediators have told top Biden administration officials in the Middle East that they expect Hamas will submit its formal response to the latest hostage and cease-fire offer in the coming days, according to a U.S. official.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said ongoing talks in Doha and Cairo have been constructive, but that Hamas has still not delivered its formal response to the three-phase deal that President Joe Biden outlined last week.

Hamas has said it viewed the offer “positively” and called on Israel to declare an explicit commitment to the agreement.

More than a dozen countries joined the U.S. in a statement Thursday to show support for the proposed deal.

The statement was signed by the leaders of Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Thailand and the United Kingdom as well as the United States.

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