Portugal Colonial - Gaza rescuers say Israeli strikes kill 35

The violence came even as Palestinian groups involved in the fighting said a ceasefire deal was "closer than ever".

Israel has faced growing criticism of its actions during the war, triggered by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack, including from rights groups accusing it of "acts of genocide" which the Israeli government strongly denies.

Pope Francis denounced on Sunday the "cruelty" of Israel's bombardment, highlighting the deaths of children and attacks on schools and hospitals in Gaza.

It was his second such comment in as many days, despite Israel's accusing the pontiff of "double standards".

On the ground in Gaza, civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said at least 13 people were killed in an air strike on a house in central Gaza's Deir el-Balah belonging to the Abu Samra family.

An AFP photographer saw residents searching through the debris for survivors, while others looked for belongings they could salvage.

In a nearby compound, bodies covered in blankets lay on the sandy ground.

The military said it targeted an Islamic Jihad militant who was operating in Deir el-Balah.

"According to an initial examination, the reported number of casualties resulting from the strike does not align with the information held by the IDF (military)," it said to AFP in a statement, which did not give its own toll.

"We are... losing loved ones every day," said Deir el-Balah resident Naim al-Ramlawi.

"I pray to God that a truce will be reached soon" and would allow Gazans to finally "live a decent life, instead of this miserable life", he said.

The military also confirmed a separate strike further north, on a school in Gaza City.

Bassal said eight people including four children were killed in the attack on the school, which had been repurposed as a shelter for Palestinians displaced by the war.

It was the latest of numerous similar strikes against schools-turned-shelters during the war.

The military says the facilities are used by Hamas Palestinian militants.

In this case it said it carried out a "precise strike" that targeted a Hamas "command and control centre" inside the school compound.

- 'Significant risk' at hospital -

AFP images showed mangled concrete slabs and iron beams strewn amid patches of blood at the damaged school building.

Bassal said in a statement that a separate strike, overnight into Sunday, killed three people in Rafah, in the south.

And a drone strike on Sunday morning hit a car in Gaza City, killing four people, the spokesman added.

Late on Sunday, the civil defence agency said seven people were killed when Israeli drones struck tents in the humanitarian area of Al-Mawasi in western Khan Yunis, while the Israeli military said it had targeted a "Hamas terrorist".

Israel in early October began a major military operation in Gaza's north, which it said aimed to prevent Hamas from regrouping there.

A United Nations official who visited Gaza City said late last month that people were living in "inhumane conditions with severe food shortages and terrible sanitary conditions".

On Sunday a hospital director in northern Gaza said Israeli forces were bombing buildings near the facility.

Hossam Abu Safia, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, said in a statement that the facility's generators were hit and that "the army is attempting to target the fuel tank, which is full of fuel and poses a significant fire risk."

Contacted by AFP, the military said it was unaware of any strikes on the hospital, one of only two still operating in northern Gaza.

The unprecedented Hamas attack last year that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also took 251 hostages, of whom 96 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 45,259 people, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

Hamas and two other Palestinian armed groups said in a rare joint statement on Saturday that an agreement to end the bloodshed was "closer than ever", after Qatari-hosted talks that followed months of stalled negotiations.

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P.Cavaco--PC