With a renewed ceasefire push in the eight-month-old Gaza war stalled, Israel bombarded central and southern areas again on Friday, killing at least 28 Palestinians, and tank forces advanced to the western edges of Rafah.

U.S.-backed Qatari and Egyptian mediators have tried again this week to reconcile clashing demands preventing a halt to the hostilities, a release of Israeli hostages and Palestinians jailed in Israel, and an unrestricted flow of aid into Gaza to alleviate a humanitarian disaster. But sources close to the talks said there were still no signs of a breakthrough.

A month after rumbling into Rafah in what Israel said was an assault to wipe out Hamas' last intact combat units, tank-led forces have advanced to the southwest fringes of the city that skirts the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt, residents said.

They said tanks were stationed in the al-Izba district near the Mediterranean coast while snipers had commandeered some buildings and high ground, trapping people in their homes. They said Israeli machinegun fire had made it too dangerous to go out.

Gaza health officials said two Palestinians had been killed and several wounded in western Rafah from tank shelling there. In central Gaza, Palestinian medics said Israeli bombardments killed at least 15 people died overnight.

"I think the occupation forces are trying to reach the beach area of Rafah. The raids and the bombing overnight were tactical, they entered under heavy fire and then retreated," one Palestinian resident told Reuters via a chat app.

In north Gaza, three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Gaza City school building that was sheltering displaced families, rescue workers said.

The Israeli military said it had targeted Hamas gunmen operating from a container inside the school premises, similar to its explanation for an airstrike on a U.N. school building in al-Nuseirat in central Gaza on Thursday that medics said killed 40 people including 14 children. Around 6,000 displaced people were sheltering at that site, the U.N. said.

The Israeli military has published the identity of what it said were 17 fighters concealed in the compound who it killed in Thursday's strike.

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Hamas has rejected Israel's assertion that the school had hidden a Hamas command post.

Israel's military blames Hamas for Gaza's high civilian death toll, accusing it of operating within densely populated neighbourhoods, schools and hospitals as cover, something it denies. U.N. and humanitarian officials accuse Israel of using disproportionate force in the war, which it denies. Hamas accuses Israel of deliberately targetting civilian locations, which Israel also denies.

On Friday, Israel said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has added its military to a global list of offenders who have committed violations against children, a move Israel's envoy at the United Nations Gilad Erdan described as "shameful."

Erdan said he was officially notified of the decision on Friday. The global list is included in a report on children and armed conflict that is due to be submitted to the U.N. Security Council on June 14.

"Israel's army is the most moral army in the world, so this immoral decision will only aid the terrorists and reward Hamas," said Erdan.

It was not immediately clear what violations Israel's military had been accused of committing.

Guterres' spokesperson Stephane Dujarric declined to comment.

According to the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, Israel's assault on Gaza has killed more than 15,500 children since Oct. 7.

BLINKEN TO PUSH CEASEFIRE

Israel has ruled out peace until Hamas is eradicated, and much of Gaza lies in ruins, but Hamas has proven resilient, with militants resurfacing to fight in areas where Israeli forces had previously declared to have defeated them and pulled back.

Hamas precipitated the war when militants stormed from Israeli-blockaded Gaza into southern Israel in a lightning strike last Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's invasion and bombardment of Gaza since then has killed at least 36,731 people, including 77 in the past 24 hours, Gaza's health ministry said in an update on Friday. Thousands more are feared buried dead under rubble, with most of the 2.3 million population displaced.

Since a brief week-long truce in November, repeated attempts to arrange a ceasefire have failed, with Hamas insisting on a permanent end to the war and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will return to the Middle East next week, part of a push by Washington to get Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas to take up the ceasefire proposal laid out last week by U.S. President Joe Biden.

Israel says it is prepared to discuss only temporary pauses in the hostilities until the Islamist militant group, which has ruled the narrow, impoverished enclave since 2007, is wiped out and Gaza poses no more security threat.

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Mediators press Hamas over Gaza ceasefire plan touted by Biden

Smoke rises from the Gaza Strip, near the Israel-Gaza border

Talks involving Qatari, Egyptian and U.S. mediators aimed at reaching a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza war were still underway on Thursday but had shown no sign of a breakthrough, two Egyptian security sources said.

The talks began on Wednesday, when CIA director William Burns met senior officials from Qatar and Egypt in Doha to discuss a proposal that U.S. President Joe Biden publicly endorsed last week. Biden described the three-phase plan as an Israeli initiative.

The talks in Qatar were aimed at finding a formula that could reassure Hamas over its demand for guarantees that the deal would deliver a complete cessation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip and a full Israeli withdrawal from the territory, the Egyptian sources said.

Hamas expressed concerns about some provisions of the proposal, especially the second phase, the sources added.

According to a summary of the plan published by the White House, the second phase includes a permanent end to hostilities as well as the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

The Egyptian sources said that Qatari and Egyptian mediators had met separately with Hamas and U.S. officials in Doha. They said there was no indication a deal was close to being reached.

Qatari, Egyptian and U.S. officials have been holding negotiations for months aimed at securing a ceasefire in Gaza as well as the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said on Wednesday that the group would "deal seriously and positively with any agreement that is based on a comprehensive ending of the aggression and the complete withdrawal and prisoners swap".

Israel said there would be no halt to fighting during ceasefire talks as it mounted a new assault on a central section of the Gaza Strip.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters on Thursday that while the group welcomed what he called "Biden's ideas", the U.S. draft resolution at the U.N. Security Council was dependent on an Israeli ceasefire proposal Hamas had seen and had rejected.

"The (U.S.) document...has no mention of ending the aggression or the withdrawal," he said.

"The Israeli documents speak of open-ended negotiation with no deadline, and it speaks of a stage during which the occupation regains its hostages and resumes the war. We had told the mediators that such a paper wasn't acceptable to us," said Abu Zuhri.

He said Hamas was committed to its May 5 proposal which was was based on an end to the fighting and an Israeli withdrawal, a swap deal, and a lifting of the blockade of the enclave.

The war began after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's military response in Gaza has killed more than 36,000 people, according to Gaza health officials, who say thousands more are feared buried under the rubble.

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Israeli strike on UN school kills dozens in Gaza

Israeli strike on UN school kills dozens in Gaza

Israel hit a Gaza school on Thursday with what it described as a targeted airstrike on up to 30 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters inside, and a Hamas official said 40 people were killed including women and children sheltering at the U.N. site.

Video footage showed Palestinians hauling away bodies and scores of injured in a hospital after the attack, which took place at a sensitive moment in mediated talks on a ceasefire that would involve releasing hostages held by Hamas and some of the Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

At the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, a Palestinian boy, Imad al-Maqadmeh, lay on the floor, his swollen face badly bruised and bleeding. He said he lost his father in the strike.

"What did we do? There are no armed people in the school. The ones there are children, playing. We play together... Why did they bomb us?" he said in the video obtained by Reuters.

In images of the dead laid out at the hospital surrounded by wailing mourners, bodies were mostly wrapped in shrouds or carpets, making it impossible to determine their identities from the video.

The U.S. issued a joint statement with other countries calling on Israel and Hamas to compromise to finalise a deal after eight months of war in the Gaza Strip.

Qatar's foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said Hamas had not yet responded to the latest ceasefire proposal and was still studying it, adding that Qatar, Egypt and the U.S. mediation efforts are still ongoing.

Hamas sources said there was nothing new to respond to, adding the Israeli proposal was old and the group rejected it because it did not speak of an end to the war or a complete pull out from Gaza.

Ismail Al-Thawabta, the director of the Hamas-run government media office, rejected Israel's assertion that the U.N. school in Nuseirat, in central Gaza, had hidden a Hamas command post.

"The occupation uses ... false fabricated stories to justify the brutal crime it conducted against dozens of displaced people," Thawabta told Reuters.

Israel's military said its fighter jets had carried out a "precise strike", and circulated satellite photos highlighting two parts of a building where it said the fighters were based.

"We're very confident in the intelligence," military spokesperson Lt Col. Peter Lerner said, accusing Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters of deliberately using U.N. facilities as operational bases.

He said 20 to 30 fighters were located in the compound, and many of them had been killed. "I'm not aware of any civilian casualties and I'd be very, very cautious of accepting anything that Hamas puts out," he said.

Later Israel's chief military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said the military had so far identified nine of 30 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters targeted in the pre-dawn strike.

As people at the school cleared rubble from bloodstained classrooms, survivor Huda Abu Dhaher described waking up to the sound of rockets.

"People's remains were scattered inside the yard and outside. The gas canister exploded," she told Reuters.

"My nephew was martyred (killed), he lost his leg and arm, he was a 10-year-old."

Washington said it expected Israel to be fully transparent in making information about the strike public.

"As a general matter, and as we’ve said before, Israel has a right to go after Hamas. But we’ve also been clear that Israel must take every precaution possible and do more to protect civilians," a White House National Security Council spokesperson said.

Late on Thursday, Hamas media said an Israeli airstrike on the house of the mayor of Al-Nuseirat camp in central Gaza Strip killed the mayor, Eyad Al-Mghari, and some members of his family.

In a separate Israeli airstrike on a house in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza Strip, three Palestinians were killed and several others were wounded, medics said.

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There was no immediate response from Israeli military on the two latest accounts.

The school, run by the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), was sheltering 6,000 displaced people at the time, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said.

"At least 35 people were killed and many more injured," he wrote on X. "Claims that armed groups may have been inside the shelter are shocking. We are however unable to verify these claims. Attacking, targeting or using UN buildings for military purposes are a blatant disregard of International Humanitarian law."

Thawabta and a medical source said 40 had been killed, including 14 children and nine women.

The United Nations condemned the attack.

"It's just another horrific example of the price that civilians are paying, that Palestinian men, women and children who are just trying to survive, who are being forced to move around in sort of a death circle around Gaza, trying to find safety, are paying," said spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.

The building was once used as a school, but with no schools now operating in Gaza it was being used as a shelter, he added.

CEASEFIRE EFFORTS

The bombing took place in a central part of Gaza where Israel announced a new military campaign on Wednesday as it battles fighters relying on hit-and-run insurgency tactics. It said it would not halt fighting during ceasefire talks, which have intensified since U.S. President Joe Biden outlined a truce proposal on Friday.

Hamas seeks a permanent end to the war. Israel says it must destroy the Islamist militant group first.

In another sensitive development, the Israeli military reported a rare attack near the Israel-Gaza border, saying a squad of Palestinian fighters killed a soldier and three of them were killed in return fire.

A statement by the Hamas armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, said its fighters had conducted an operation behind enemy lines in the Rafah area of southern Gaza, corresponding to the location in the Israeli military's account.

Hamas precipitated the war by attacking Israeli territory last Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. About half the hostages were freed in the November truce.

Israel's military assault on Gaza has killed more than 36,000 people, according to health officials in the territory, who say thousands more dead are feared buried under the rubble.

U.S. and Israeli officials have told Reuters about half of Hamas's forces have been killed in the conflict. Hamas does not disclose fatalities among its fighters and some officials say Israel exaggerated the figures. Israel's own military death toll is almost 300.

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