Dozens martyred in Israeli strikes after Blinken ends visit without truce breakthrough

Cairo (Reuters): Israeli airstrikes across Gaza killed at least 50 Palestinians in the past 24 hours, Palestinian health officials said on Wednesday, after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken ended his latest visit to the region with a truce deal still elusive.

As last-ditch diplomacy continued to halt the 10-month-old war between Israel and Hamas, the Israeli military said jets hit around 30 targets throughout the Gaza Strip including tunnels, launch sites and an observation post.

Later in the day, the Israeli military struck a school and a nearby house in Gaza City, killing at least three people and wounding 15, the territory's Civil Emergency Service said.

The military said in a statement that it had hit Hamas militants operating at a command center located inside a compound that had previously served as a school.

It accused Hamas of continuing to operate from within civilian facilities and areas, an allegation Gaza's dominant Islamist militant group denies.

In the town of Bani Suhaila near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, an Israeli airstrike killed seven Palestinians at a tent encampment for displaced people, medics said.

The military issued new evacuation orders in the heavily overcrowded area of Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by the fighting have sought shelter.

The orders, which the military said were needed to clear civilians from what had become "a dangerous combat zone", were soon followed by tank fire with at least one person killed and several wounded by machine gun fire, medics and residents said.

The conflict churned on as Blinken wound up his ninth troubleshooting visit to the Middle East since the Gaza war erupted last October with still no sign that deep differences between the sides over how to end the war could be reconciled.