António Guterres calls humanitarian situation in Gaza ‘horrific’ as thousands of people remain without food, water and medicine

Agence France-Presse has reported on the aftermath of what Hamas authorities said was Israeli tank shelling that killed 20 people at the Osama bin Zaid boys’ school north of Gaza City.

The report said:

Ambulance teams rushed into the debris-littered building to aid the injured and remove the dead.

Stunned onlookers wept and wandered the scene with hands clasped above the head in horror and disbelief.

This blog is now closed. Our live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war continues here

On Friday afternoon, the Hezbollah secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, is to make a highly anticipated speech. The head of the influential Iran-backed Shia militant group will break weeks of silence with a broadcast from Beirut, which comes in the wake of a rise in violence on Israel’s northern border.

Hezbollah said on Thursday it had simultaneously attacked 19 positions in Israel on Thursday evening. The clashes have so far been mostly contained to the frontier, and Hezbollah has used only a fraction of the firepower that Nasrallah has been threatening with Israel for years.

IDF spokesperson says military ‘powerfully deployed’ north of Gaza and civilians still urged to move south

• Israel-Hamas war: live updates

Israeli forces have surrounded Gaza City and are attacking Hamas infrastructure and destroying tunnels used by militants to launch attacks, the Israeli military said.

Airstrikes continued alongside the intensifying ground offensive in what Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, described as the second stage of the war.

This blog is closed.

• Israel and Hamas at war: what we know on day 28

Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister and army chief, has spoken to Foreign Policy magazine, saying Israel will “probably lose the support of public opinion” over its response to the 7 October Hamas attack.

In a transcript of the interview published on the publication’s website, the former prime minister said, “our objective is to limit the military and government capabilities of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. This could not be accomplished by airstrikes alone. We have to deploy probably many thousands of boots on the ground.”

Even if it develops into a full-scale regional conflict with Hezbollah, which has 10 times more rockets and missiles, or if the West Bank or Golan Heights are involved, Israel is still stronger. It’s not an existential threat, but it will take more time, more losses, and more friction with our supporters in the world.”