The Israel Defense Forces said on Sunday morning that it struck a Hamas command center inside a former school in Gaza City, as the military intensified its offensive in northern Gaza and tens of thousands of Palestinians evacuated to newly expanded “humanitarian zones” in central and southern Gaza.

The military said that Israeli Air Force jets conducted a targeted strike on the Hamas command center, which was embedded at the site of the Saleh a-Din School in northern Gaza.

The military said the airstrike on the compound was “precise” and intelligence-based, targeting a site used by the Palestinian terror group to “plan and carry out terror actions against IDF soldiers and the State of Israel.”

The statement added that the IDF took many steps to mitigate harm to civilians, including using precise munitions and aerial observation. The IDF once again accused Hamas of violating international law by placing its assets in civilian areas and compounds.

The military also announced that troops killed some 40 terror operatives during operations in northern Gaza’s Jabaliya over the past day. Several sites belonging to Hamas were destroyed and weapons were seized in the area.

The IDF has been conducting a renewed ground offensive in the Jabaliya area over the past several weeks and estimates that some 45,000 Palestinian civilians have evacuated the area. Hundreds of suspected terror operatives have been detained, and hundreds of gunmen have been killed, according to the military.

Meanwhile, in the Netzarim Corridor area of central Gaza, the IDF said troops killed a cell of gunmen in an exchange of fire on Sunday morning.

On Saturday, Israeli forces reportedly withdrew from the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, a day after the IDF said it was operating at the medical center amid “intelligence information on terrorists and terror infrastructure in the area.”

An IDF spokesperson declined to comment on the hospital report.

Medics from the Hamas-run health ministry said at least 44 of the facility’s 70-member team at the medical facility had been detained by Israeli forces. They said 14 were later released, including the hospital’s director. The medics also said that at least two children had died inside the intensive care unit after Israeli fire hit the generators and oxygen station in the facility on Friday.

In the weeks before the operation, the IDF said it had enabled the evacuation of patients and staff from the hospital, while also ensuring that the medical center’s emergency systems continued to function. Some medical staffers refused the army’s orders to evacuate the hospital or leave their patients unattended. Before the raid, medics said, at least 600 people remained in the hospital, including patients and their escorts.

“The safety and lives of patients who are left inside Kamal Adwan Hospital without medical staff and much-needed medication are at risk now,” said Marwan Al-Hams of the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.

Kamal Adwan is the last functioning hospital in Gaza’s north. The facility said it has been struggling with shortages since the start of the war, which has been increasingly aggravated by the launch of a new Israeli operation in northern Gaza earlier this month.

Hamas called the storming of Kamal Adwan “a war crime and a flagrant violation of international laws.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) described the situation in northern Gaza as “extremely dire” and said people wishing to evacuate must be assured safe passage.

“Ongoing evacuation orders, and continued restriction on introduction of essential supplies, leaves the remaining civilian population in north Gaza in horrific circumstances,” the ICRC said in a statement on Saturday.

“Hospitals are being told to evacuate, leaving a potential vacuum of medical services for the many civilians who remain,” it added.

COGAT — the Israeli Defense Ministry body that manages civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories — said Friday it had allowed the transfer of 23 patients out of the hospital the previous night by Palestinian ambulances and UN vehicles.

COGAT also said it allowed the transfer of one fuel truck, “180 blood units and a truckload of medical equipment” donated by UN agencies to the hospital.

On Saturday, the IDF announced the expansion of the designated “humanitarian zone” in southern Gaza, where the vast majority of the Palestinian population in the Strip currently resides.

The zone is where most humanitarian aid is directed, and where several field hospitals have been established.

The size of the zone has changed repeatedly amid evolving IDF operations against Hamas. Some 1.9 million Palestinians of the 2.3 million Gazan population are residing in the area, according to IDF assessments from July.

“The expanded Humanitarian Area includes field hospitals that have been established since the start of the war, tent compounds, and shelter equipment, as well as food, water, medicine, and medical equipment that has entered Gaza through coordination between COGAT and the international community,” the IDF said in a statement.

“The IDF will continue to operate to achieve the war objectives, including dismantling Hamas and bringing home all the hostages,” it added.

It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 — when terrorists streamed across the border into Israel and slaughtered some 1,200 people, sparking the current war — remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.

Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said on Sunday that 42,924 people have been killed and 100,833 injured during Israel’s offensive in Gaza over the past year, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.

Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7. Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.