Gaza’s civil defence agency said Saturday an Israeli strike hit a school in Gaza City, killing 90-100 people, while the Israeli military said it had struck a Hamas command centre.

“Forty martyrs and dozens wounded after the Israeli bombing of the Al-Taba’een school in the Al-Sahaba area in Gaza City,” agency spokesman Mahmoud Basal said in a post on Telegram.

Basal described the incident as “a horrific massacre”, with some bodies catching fire. “The crews are trying to control the fire to retrieve the bodies of the martyrs and rescue the wounded,” he said.

Israel’s army said Saturday it had “precisely struck Hamas terrorists operating within a Hamas command and control center embedded in the Al-Taba’een school”.

On Thursday, the agency said Israeli strikes had hit two schools in Gaza City, killing more than 18 people.

The Israeli military said at the time it had struck Hamas command centres.

The war in Gaza began with Hamas’s October 7 attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Palestinian operatives seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,699 people, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

Israel has vowed to destroy the Palestinian group in retaliation for its October attack, but during 10 months of war across the Gaza Strip, the military has found itself returning to some areas to fight the militants again.

Israel’s military on Friday said troops were operating around Khan Yunis, the southern Gaza city from which soldiers had withdrawn in April after months of fierce fighting with Hamas.

After the military issued an evacuation order for parts of Khan Yunis, AFPTV images showed a crowd of people flowing through dusty, damaged streets on foot or on donkeys and motorcycle carts piled with belongings.

By Friday, the United Nations Humanitarian Office OCHA estimated that “at least 60,000 Palestinians may have moved towards western Khan Yunis in the past 72 hours”, said UN spokeswoman Florencia Soto Nino.

The Gaza war has already pulled in Iran-aligned groups in the region, and fears of a broader Middle East war have surged following vows of vengeance for the killing of two senior militants, including Hamas’s political leader.