Middle East: Israel strikes on schools, hospital kill dozens

The United Kingdom said it had withdrawn the families of embassy staff in Beirut due to the "rapidly deteriorating security situation."

The Foreign Office said it had deployed additional consular officials, border force and military personnel to the region to help Britons leave.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy repeated a call for British nationals to "leave now."

G7 foreign ministers urged all parties in the Middle East to avoid actions that could lead to escalation, Italy's foreign minister said on Sunday.

"We call on the parties concerned to desist from any initiative that could hinder the path of dialogue and moderation and encourage a new escalation." Italy's Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said.

Italy holds the G7's rotating presidency.

The ministers also appealed for the conclusion of a cease-fire agreement for Gaza and the release of hostages still held there.

Israeli strikes on two schools in Gaza City killed 25 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to Gaza Civil Defense.

The Palestinian official news agency WAFA and Hamas media reported dozens more were wounded in the strikes on the schools of Hassan Salama and Al-Nasser, which housed displaced families.

The Israeli military confirmed the strikes, albeit saying militants were using the sites.

"The schools were used by Hamas' Al-Furqan Battalion as a hiding place for its terrorist operatives and as command centers," the military said in a statement, a claim that could not be indepently verified.

Vandals have painted "Free Gaza" on a statue of Anne Frank in Amsterdam, according to the Anne Frank Foundation.

Sunday marks exactly 80 years since the young diarist and her family were betrayed in hiding and arrested by Nazis in Amsterdam on August 4, 1944.

The police have opened an investigation into the latest case of vandalism.

This is the second instance in less than a month where the statue of one of the most well-known victims of the Holocaust has been targeted.

The statue in a southern Amsterdam park was vandalized on July 9.

"This graffiti hits us right in the heart again," Anne Frank Foundation director Ronald Leopold said. 

Five people died when an Israeli airstrike hit a hospital compound in Gaza, health officials said on Sunday.  

They said the airstrike hit a tent area for displaced Palestinians inside the Al-Aqsa hospital compound, causing a fire to break out.

A further 18 people were wounded in the incident, Palestinian medical authorities said.

The Israeli military said it had targeted a militant who "conducted terror activities." It also said it identified secondary explosions, "indicating the presence of weaponry in the area."

In June, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights accused Israel of "systematic attacks on hospitals and other medical facilities in violation of the laws of war."

The strike on the Al-Aqsa hospital compound was one of several across the Gaza Strip on Sunday. The Israeli army said it hit "approximately 50 terror targets" in the past 24 hours.

The hospital compound is in the Deir Al-Balah area, which is crowded with thousands of people displaced by fighting in other parts of the enclave.

Meanwhile, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said on Sunday that 33 people had died in Gaza in the past 24 hours of fighting, with its given total since October 7 now approaching 40,000.

Jordan's Foreign Minister will make a rare visit to Iran on Sunday amid rising regional tensions, Iranian state media reported.

The Jordanian Foreign Ministry said Safadi will convey a message from King Abdullah II to Iran's newly-elected President Masoud Pezeshkianregarding the situation in the region.

Safadi will also hold "extensive talks" with with his Iranian counterpart Ali Bagheri Kani, the Foreign Ministry added.

Safadi's visit would make him the first senior Jordanian official to visit Iran officially in over 20 years. During Pezeshkian's inauguration earlier this week, Jordan was represented by a lower-level official.

Since Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's killing in Tehran earlier this week, Iran has held talks with various Arab countries including Jordan, Egypt, Oman and Qatar.

The US and its Arab allies, including Jordan, have meanwhile lobbied hard to prevent a wider escalation.

Iran is likely preparing to go ahead with its vow to target Israel over the killing of senior Hamas and Hezbollah members, according to DW's Middle East analyst Shani Rozanes.

"I think the fact that we haven't seen anything indicates what we might be seeing, in the sense that this is not going to be a gut response from Iran," she said.

"They're taking their time, they're being very strategic, they're trying to maybe coordinate more forces in the region."

She pointed to Iranian-backed groups in Yemen, Iraq and Syria as potential threats in this respect. Iran, Hezbollah and the Houthis previously launched strikes against Israel in retaliation for what they said was an Israeli strike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria in April.

"The idea is that there was some sort of a threshold that was broken in April, for the first time an unprecedented direct attack from Iran toward Israel. And this is a threshold that the Iranians have set to themselves," she said, referring to the Iranian strikes. 

"So it's probably not going to be less than that. Which means, last time it was around 300 different kinds of missiles that were shot at Israel — most of them were intercepted — but we're talking about probably this scale. And now for Iran it's good to keep the Israelis on edge, on high alert."

Rozanes said a wider regional escalation would play directly into the hands of Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by the US, the EU, Germany and others.

"This is also partially what Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, wanted. When he launched the October 7 attack he wanted as many fronts that Israel would have to face as possible," Rozanes said.

"He was hoping not just for Gaza to be there but also the West Bank, what we've been seeing in Lebanon, and what we're seeing now happening in Iran. In many ways, for Sinwar, this week is finally seeing the wide extension of the goal that he has set himself for a wider conflict in the region."

Regional tensions have soared in the Middle East following the killings of two senior members of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas earlier this week.

An Israeli airstrike killed Hezbollah military chief Fouad Shukr in Beirut on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Iran and others have blamed Israel for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday.

Both Hezbollah and Hamas are classified as terror groups by several countries.

Iran and Iranian-backed groups have vowed to take "vengeance" against Israel over the two killings.

In comments published on Saturday, the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, General Hossein Salami, said that Israel and its supporters "must reckon with the holy wrath of the resistance groups."

Iran's non-state allies include the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as militias in Iraq and Syria.

Observers fear threats posed by these groups could result in a wider regional war, some 10 months after Israel began its military offensive in Gaza in response to the October 7 terror attack by Hamas.

In recent days, Western governments notably issued new travel warnings for Lebanon in particular.

A second person has died from a knife attack in Holon, Israel, after he succumbed to his wounds.

The Shamir-Assaf Harofeh Medical Center announced that a man in his 80s had died after he was taken to hospital, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

A woman in her 80s had earlier died at the scene, while two other people were hospitalized with injuries.

France urged its citizens to leave Lebanon immediately on Sunday as fears grow over a broader Middle East conflict.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani urged Italians temprorarily in Lebanon not to ravel to the south of the country nearer the Israeli border and to return to Italy as soon as possible "given the deteriorating security situation." 

The moves follows similar calls by Britain and the United States on Saturday.

A number of international airlines have canceled flights to and from Beirut.

Iran and Iran-backed groups in the Middle East have vowed to take revenge following Israel's assassination of Hezbollah military chief Fuad Shukr in Beirut and by the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. 

One person has died and at least three others were injured in a knife attack in the Israeli city of Holon, south of Tel Aviv, on Sunday morning.

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said a 70-year-old woman died, while three men were all taken to hospital. 

"A policeman who arrived at the scene neutralized the stabber," the Israeli Police said on social media, suggesting the perpetrator was killed.

Police also said the attacker was a resident of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.