Tank Shelling Kills 9, Wounds 75 at UN Training Center in Southern Gaza

At least nine people were killed and another 75 wounded Wednesday in Khan Younis as tank shelling hit a United Nations training center, where 800 displaced Palestinians were housed in the southern Gaza city, a U.N. relief official said.

Israeli forces were reporting advancing through the city in the fourth month of the war with Hamas militants. Palestinian officials said Israeli forces cut off access to southern Gaza's main hospitals and the key escape route for hundreds of thousands of people who have sought refuge in Khan Younis from fighting in central and northern Gaza.

Palestinians displayed video showing black smoke pouring into the sky above the training center run by the U.N. relief organization for Palestinians.

Asked about the shelling, the Israeli military said the wider area was a significant base of Hamas militants.

"Dismantling Hamas' military framework in western Khan Younis is the heart of the logic behind the operation," it said.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the U.N. relief agency for Palestinians, condemned the attack and said the number of dead was likely to increase.

"Once again a blatant disregard of basic rules of war," Lazzarini said on X, formerly Twitter, adding that the compound had been clearly marked as a U.N. facility, and its coordinates had been shared with Israeli authorities.

Meanwhile, talks are continuing on a new 30-day cease-fire during which Israeli hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel would be freed and more aid would enter Gaza, the narrow territory along the Mediterranean Sea.

U.S. President Joe Biden's Middle East adviser, Brett McGurk, was in Doha, the Qatari capital, to discuss the possibility of a halt in the fighting. A week-long truce in late November led to the freeing of about 100 Israeli hostages and the release of 240 Palestinians from Israeli detention.

The war started October 7 with the Hamas attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and the seizure of the hostages. Israel's counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 25,000 people, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry.

But the fighting rages, with the U.N. relief chief in Gaza, Thomas White, announcing the newest attack on the X media platform: "Attack on Khan Younis Training Centre this afternoon - two tank rounds hit building that shelters 800 people - reports now 9 dead and 75 injured."

The Israeli military said it had killed "numerous" squads of gunmen "with sniper, tank and aerial fire" in the Khan Younis area.

Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said in a statement: "The occupation is isolating hospitals in Khan Younis and carrying out massacres in the western area of the city."

Israel said its troops carried out airstrikes and ground attacks throughout Gaza on Wednesday, while warning people in the northern parts of Khan Younis to evacuate, the latest such order that Israel says is meant to protect civilians from the fighting. But with the war moving further south, and nearly all the population having fled their homes, there are fewer and fewer safe places for civilians to go.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Tuesday of the "heartbreaking and catastrophic" effects of the war on Palestinian civilians.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the evacuation order in Khan Younis affected an area with 88,000 residents in addition to an estimated 425,000 displaced people sheltering in schools and other sites. The area is also home to 20% of the "remaining partially functioning hospitals across the Gaza Strip," the agency said.