Deir al-balah (Gaza Strip)- Israel's defence minister on Wednesday ordered all remaining Palestinians to leave Gaza City, saying it was their“last opportunity” and that anyone who stayed would be considered a militant supporter and face the“full force” of Israel's latest offensive.

At least 16 Palestinians were killed across the territory, according to local hospitals, as Hamas weighed a new proposal from US President Donald Trump aimed at ending the war and returning the remaining captives taken in Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack that triggered it.

Around 400,000 Palestinians have fled famine-stricken Gaza City since Israel launched a major offensive last month aimed at occupying it, but hundreds of thousands remain, many because they cannot afford to leave or are too weak to make the journey to tent camps in the south.

“This is the last opportunity for Gaza residents who wish to do so to move south,” Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X.“Those who remain in Gaza will be (considered) terrorists and terror supporters.”

School sheltering displaced people targetted

At least seven people, including first responders, were killed when two Israeli strikes minutes apart hit a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, according to Al-Ahli Hospital, where the casualties were taken. Officials there said more than three dozen people were wounded.

Five Palestinians were killed later in a strike on people gathered around a drinking water tank elsewhere in Gaza City, the hospital said. Shifa Hospital said a man was killed in a strike on his apartment. Strikes in central Gaza killed another three people, according to Al-Awda Hospital.

Another strike hit a tent in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah, seriously wounding two people, according to hospital officials.

Earlier on Wednesday at the same hospital, dozens of people attended a funeral service for a Palestinian freelance journalist, Yahya Barzaq. He was killed Tuesday along with five other people in an airstrike while working for Turkish broadcast outlet TRT.

More than 189 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli fire in Gaza since the outbreak of the war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on Wednesday's strikes or the strike that killed Barzaq.

Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed more than 66,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 170,000 others, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. UN agencies and many independent experts view its figures as the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.

Trump's peace proposal

On Wednesday, Egypt's Foreign Minister Bader Abdelatty said Trump's proposal requires more negotiations on certain elements, echoing remarks made by Qatar a day earlier. Hamas said it would study the plan, and it was not clear when it would respond.

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