Palestinians mourn dead after Israeli strike on Gaza's Khan Younis

CAIRO/GAZA - Relatives of Palestinians killed by Israel in Khan Younis gathered around their white-shrouded bodies on Monday before carrying them to their graves.

Palestinian health officials said on Sunday at least 20 people, including children, were killed in the strike at the school sheltering displaced families in the city in the southern Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said on Monday it had struck Hamas militants operating from a compound that previously served as a U.N.-run school. It said the compound served also as a training camp to prepare and plan attacks against Israeli forces.

Women wept as the bodies of the family members were carried away on medical stretchers by men who laid them on the ground to perform funeral prayers.

"People were safe, staying in their homes (shelters) after they prayed the dinner prayer. They were sitting, sleeping, and staying put in their places," said Manal Tafesh, whose brother and his children were among those killed.

"Our children are gone, our children are gone. Our youth are gone. Our children are gone, and our lineage ended. When will this darkness end?" she told Reuters outside the morgue.

The military accuses Hamas of using civilian populations such as hospitals, schools, and mosques for military purposes. Hamas denies the allegations as an Israeli pretext to "justify indiscriminate killing of civilians".

Israeli bombardment continued on Monday. Palestinian health officials said strikes across the enclave had killed at least 17 people.

Medics said four people were killed in an airstrike in Beit Lahiya town in the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, where the army has operated since October, while three were killed in Israeli tank shelling that hit near the cemetery of Nuseirat camp in central areas and three others in Rafah in the south.

Later on Monday, seven Palestinians, including two women, were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City, medics said.

The war began when the Palestinian militant group Hamas stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel then launched an air and land offensive that has killed almost 45,000 people, mostly civilians, according to authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. The campaign has displaced nearly the entire population and left much of the enclave in ruins.

A bid by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States to reach a truce, which would also include a hostage deal, has gained momentum in recent weeks, yet there has been no news of a breakthrough.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had spoken with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who returns to the White House on Jan. 20, about efforts to secure a hostage release.

"We discussed the need to complete Israel's victory and we spoke at length about the efforts we are making to free our hostages," Netanyahu said in a statement on Sunday.

(Reporting and writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Additional reporting by Hussam al-Masri in Gaza; Editing by Alison Williams and Sandra Maler)