Saudi prince condemns Israel ‘aggression’

Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler has condemned Israel's military aggression in Gaza as Jewish troops battled Hamas terrorists around a hospital in the Palestinian territory.

Explosions rang through the night near Gaza's biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, where many people have taken refuge, Agence France-Presse correspondents at the scene said.

The hospital's director said a strike on the key health facility on Friday killed 13 people. They accused Israel of being responsible — a claim that was impossible to verify.

"We call on all international and Arab parties to immediately intervene to stop the targeting of hospitals in Gaza," a spokesperson for the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, Ahsraf Al-Qudra, said.

"We condemn the military aggression witnessed in the Gaza Strip, the targeting of civilians, and the continued violations of international humanitarian law by the Israeli occupation forces," Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told a summit with African leaders on Friday, his first public comments on the Israel-Hamas war.

"We stress the necessity of stopping this war and forced displacement and creating conditions for the return of stability and achieving peace."

The Gulf kingdom hosts two emergency meetings on the fighting in Gaza — of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

French President Emmanuel Macron has also urged Israel to stop as civilians were dying from Israel's air and expanding ground campaign.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in response that Hamas, not Israel, was to blame for the civilian deaths.

Netanyahu repeated that Israel was trying to avoid harming civilians but that Hamas was preventing them from moving to safe areas and using them as "human shields" — a charge Hamas denies.

Israel's defense force said its 401st Brigade had killed about 150 "terrorists" and gained control over Hamas strongholds in northern Gaza.

Palestinians reported strikes or sniper fire at two hospitals and a school in Gaza on Friday.

The bodies of 50 people killed in a strike on Gaza City's Al-Buraq school were taken to the Al-Shifa hospital, its director said.

The toll could not be independently verified, though AFP journalists saw corpses covered by blankets lying in the hospital courtyard.

Meanwhile, in Israel, medical services reported two women were wounded in rocket attacks in Tel Aviv.

Hamas's military wing said it had targeted the Israeli commercial hub.

WITH AFP