New Delhi: At least 50 people were killed in an Israeli air strike that hit two schools sheltering displaced people in the north of the Gaza Strip on Monday.
The attack took place in the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City, Reuters reported citing official Palestinian news agency, WAFA agency.
This development occurred as Gaza's health ministry said that at least 15,899 Palestinians, 70% of them women or under 18s, have now been killed in Israeli air and artillery strikes on the enclave since October 7. Thousands more are missing and feared buried in rubble.
Earlier today, Israel ordered Palestinians to leave parts of Gaza's main southern city, Khan Younis, reported Reuters.
Taking to social media platform X on Monday morning, the military posted a map with around a quarter of Khan Younis marked off in yellow as the territory that must be evacuated at once.
Three arrows pointed south and west, telling people to head towards the Mediterranean coast and towards Rafah, a major town near the Egyptian border.
But residents said that areas which they had been told to go to were also coming under fire, reported Reuters.
Meanwhile, both Israeli and Palestinian representatives at the United Nations on Monday traded accusations of "genocide" over the war raging in Gaza, with both sides demanding an international response, reported AFP.
"The attacks by Hamas on October 7 were motivated by a genocidal ideology," Yeela Cytrin, a legal advisor at the Israeli mission in Geneva, told the diplomats gathered at the UN's European headquarters.
According to AFP, Palestinian representative Dima Asfour meanwhile insisted to the council that the "man-made catastrophe" resulting from Israel's massive bombing campaign and ground offensive was "a textbook case of genocide".
Israel launched its assault to wipe out Hamas, which rules Gaza, in retaliation for an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by its gunmen. They killed 1,200 people and seized 240 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.