“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating,” she told reporters after meeting with Mr. Netanyahu at the White House complex. “The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time — we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies, we cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent.”

She noted that she had also met with the families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas since its Oct. 7 terrorist attack and expressed distress for their anguish, making a point of reciting the names of each of the hostages with U.S. citizenship. “I’ve told them each time they are not alone, and I stand with them,” she said. “And President Biden and I are working every day to bring them home.”

In a sign of the changing order in Washington since Mr. Biden withdrew from the presidential race on Sunday, Ms. Harris offered the only substantive comments after Mr. Netanyahu met separately with each of them. She pressed for the conclusion of a long-delayed cease-fire deal to end the war and bring the hostages home.

Many were watching Ms. Harris, given her new role. Over the nine months since the Hamas attack, she has largely stuck close to the president’s position, although at times she has sounded more empathetic about the suffering in Gaza, leading some to conclude that she might not be as supportive of Mr. Netanyahu’s war as Mr. Biden has been.

Republicans criticized Ms. Harris for not attending the prime minister’s address to Congress on Wednesday while keeping a previously scheduled out-of-town commitment, although they had no criticism for Senator JD Vance of Ohio, their own Republican vice-presidential nominee, for also skipping the speech, citing a scheduling conflict.

Clearly determined not to let herself be painted into a corner, Ms. Harris made a point of denouncing the “despicable acts by unpatriotic protesters” who burned a flag and defaced statues with anti-Israel slogans outside the Capitol on Wednesday.

“I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews,” she said in a written statement issued hours before her meeting with Mr. Netanyahu. “Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent, and we must not tolerate it in our nation.”

The administration’s support of Israel’s war effort, even with the qualms Mr. Biden has expressed about the civilian toll and his suspension of a shipment of munitions, had been a thorny issue for his re-election campaign. He has faced criticism from some Democrats for not exerting more pressure on Mr. Netanyahu to limit the carnage and end the fighting.

The contrast between the prime minister’s meetings with Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden on Thursday was striking. The president greeted Mr. Netanyahu cordially in the Oval Office. “Well, welcome back, Mr. Prime Minister,” Mr. Biden said as the two sat down for what would be a 90-minute meeting. “We’ve got a lot to talk about. I think we should get to it.”

While the two have been at odds over the conduct of the war for months, Mr. Biden offered no thoughts about the situation on the ground while reporters were in the room and instead turned the floor over to Mr. Netanyahu, who used the opportunity to express gratitude now that the president is winding up his long political career.

“Mr. President, we’ve known each other for 40 years, and you’ve known every Israeli prime minister for 50 years, from Golda Meir,” Mr. Netanyahu told him. “So from a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel. And I look forward to discussing with you today and working with you in the months ahead on the great issues before us.”

Mr. Biden grinned at the reference to him as an “Irish American Zionist” and then said he looked forward to their discussions as well. “By the way, that first meeting with Prime Minister Golda Meir, and she had an assistant sitting next to me, a guy named Rabin,” he said, referring to Yitzhak Rabin, who would later become prime minister. “That’s how far back it goes. I was only 12 then.”

Ms. Harris, by contrast, was polite but businesslike in greeting Mr. Netanyahu in her ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House, and the two offered no statements in front of the cameras as they began their 40-minute meeting. When she emerged afterward to make her comments, she did so by herself, and the Israelis were surprised by her tone.

She expressed solidarity with Israel, reiterating her “unwavering commitment” to its existence and its security, and she condemned Hamas as a “brutal terrorist organization” that had started the war when it “massacred 1,200 innocent people, including 44 Americans” and “committed horrific acts of sexual violence.”

“Israel has a right to defend itself,” she said, then added pointedly, “and how it does so matters.”

John F. Kirby, a White House spokesman, played down any differences between the president and vice president on Gaza. “She’s been a full partner in our policies in the Middle East,” he told reporters before either meeting.

Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu met with families of hostages held by Hamas amid renewed confidence about prospects for a cease-fire deal that would release their loved ones. Some of the hostage relatives said as they left the White House that they were convinced the American and Israeli leaders both felt urgency to bring the war to an end so that those captured during the Oct. 7 attack could come home.

“We feel probably more optimistic than we have since the first round of releases in late November, early December,” said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of Sagui Dekel-Chen, who lived on the kibbutz Nir Oz.

“We got an absolute commitment from the Biden administration and from Prime Minister Netanyahu that they understand the urgency of this moment now to waste no time and to complete this deal, as it currently stands with as little change as humanly possible within,” he added.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son Hersh Goldberg-Polin was grievously injured during the attack but seen in a video released in April, said Mr. Biden’s decision to give up his re-election bid would not diminish his ability to influence events in the region.

“On the contrary, I actually think it allows the president to be laser focused on the things that are true priorities to him,” she said. “And saving human beings, cherished human beings, 115 of them, eight of whom are U.S. citizens, is one paramount issue for him.”

Mr. Kirby said that the negotiators “are closer now, we believe, than we’ve been before” but that there were still gaps. He did not blame Israel in particular for resisting. “The Israelis already have made many compromises to get us to this point,” he said. “Hamas through their interlocutors have made compromises to get us to this point. And yet we’re still not there. So there’s still a need for compromise.”

The White House meeting came a day after Mr. Netanyahu used his address to a joint meeting of Congress to denounce critics of Israel, particularly left-wing protesters he termed “useful idiots.” Police used pepper spray outside the Capitol to push back thousands of protesters, some of whom burned an American flag and marred statues with slogans like “Hamas is coming.” On Thursday, protesters were kept at a distance from the White House by a new wall of fencing beyond the normal gates as they shouted upon Mr. Netanyahu’s arrival.

Mr. Netanyahu planned to hedge his bets by making a trip to Florida to visit former President Donald J. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Friday. But Mr. Trump, who has soured on Mr. Netanyahu after their initially strong alliance, may not offer the message the prime minister wants to hear.

In an interview on Fox News on Thursday, the former president said that Israel should wrap up the war soon because it has yielded bad public relations for the country. Israel should “finish up and get it done quickly,” Mr. Trump said, “because they are getting decimated with this publicity.”

Zach Montague contributed reporting.

“Israel is not very good at public relations,” Mr. Trump said.

The comments came a day before a scheduled meeting on Friday between the former president and Mr. Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private residence and club in Palm Beach, Fla. But it is not clear that the Israeli prime minister — who praised the former president in his congressional address — would agree with Mr. Trump about wrapping up the conflict.

In his speech to U.S. lawmakers, Mr. Netanyahu vowed that Israel would fight until Hamas was eradicated. He did not say what many Israelis, especially the relatives of hostages in Gaza, wanted to hear: that he would close a cease-fire deal with Hamas to end the war and return about 115 people taken from Israel on Oct. 7 who remain in Gaza, several dozen of whom are believed to be dead.

On Monday, the Israeli military announced that two of the remaining hostages were dead. On Thursday, the Israeli military announced that five hostages’ bodies had been found in tunnels in an operation in Khan Younis and returned to Israel from Gaza.

The steady drumbeat of bad news about the captives underscores the urgency of a deal for the hostages’ relatives, some of whom met with Mr. Netanyahu in Washington this week, including at a gathering with President Biden at the White House on Thursday. They expressed optimism about the possibility of a deal when they emerged from the meeting, and told reporters in a briefing that Mr. Netanyahu understood the urgency of the need for a cease-fire.

It is a point that Mr. Trump may make at Mar-a-Lago, too, telling Mr. Netanyahu what he told Fox News: “Finish up.”

Israel has said that Hamas has exploited the “humanitarian zone” to launch rockets at Israel, as well as use it for other military purposes. Aid groups have lamented that Israel has occasionally struck the area, despite telling Gazans they would be safer there. There was no immediate response from Hamas.

Israel has been carrying out a new operation in Khan Younis this week, using tanks and fighter jets to strike what it has described as Hamas infrastructure in the southern Gaza city. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, told reporters the renewed offensive aimed in part to “enable the operation” to retrieve the bodies.

Dozens of people have been killed during the Israeli assault on Khan Younis, the Gazan Health Ministry has reported. Many also fled their homes as the Israeli bombardment intensified, while others elected to stay, hoping they would be safer in their houses than in tents. Admiral Hagari said that Israeli forces had killed “many terrorists.”

The five people whose bodies were recovered — Maya Goren, 56; Tomer Ahimas, 20; Kiril Brodski, 19; Oren Goldin, 33; and Ravid Katz, 51 — were killed during the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7 and were taken back to Gaza to be held as bargaining chips, Israeli officials said. They are considered hostages by the Israeli government.

Mr. Brodski and Mr. Ahimas were soldiers who fell during the attacks, while the other three were civilians.

Ms. Goren was a teacher from Nir Oz, one of the hardest-hit communities near the Gaza border; her husband was also killed on Oct. 7. Mr. Katz, also from Nir Oz, was a father of three children. The body of Mr. Goldin, a member of a nearby village’s civil response squad, was taken, along with that of his brother-in-law Tal Haimi, whose body is still in Gaza.

The Israeli military said that intelligence — including information from detained Palestinian militants — had guided forces to the tunnel.

More than 250 people were abducted during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, according to Israel, and 105 were released during a brief cease-fire in November. Israeli officials say 115 hostages remain in Gaza, including roughly 40 who are presumed dead.

The return home of the hostages’ remains in body bags added to the domestic political pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war, even as he was visiting Washington and in a speech to Congress gave a full-throated defense of Israel’s military operations in Gaza.

“The war in Gaza could end tomorrow if Hamas surrenders, disarms and returns all the hostages,” Mr. Netanyahu said during his address to Congress on Wednesday. “But if they don’t, Israel will fight until we destroy Hamas’s military capabilities and its rule in Gaza and bring all our hostages home.”

Mr. Netanyahu did not refer to the current proposal backed by the Biden administration and the United Nations Security Council. Under that deal, Israel would ultimately agree to a permanent cease-fire with Hamas and withdraw its forces from Gaza in exchange for the release of all hostages.

Nissim Kalderon, whose brother Ofer was abducted on Oct. 7, accused Mr. Netanyahu of hesitating to reach a deal for political reasons. Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition government depends on hard-line parties who support permanent Israeli control of Gaza, effectively ruling out a cease-fire with Hamas.

“I expected, hoped, wished that you would open your speech with ‘We have a signed deal.’ But again and again, you’re not doing what you should have done 292 days ago,” Mr. Kalderon said at a rally in Tel Aviv on Wednesday night. “Bring your citizens home.”

At least six Israeli relatives of hostages were arrested in the House gallery by Capitol Police during Mr. Netanyahu’s speech as they wore bright yellow T-shirts calling on him to reach an agreement to free their loved ones.

“Benjamin Netanyahu spoke for 54 minutes and he did not mention once the need to seal the deal,” said Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat was abducted from the Israeli border community of Be’eri. “That’s what he needs to do, sign the deal and release all the hostages now.”

Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reporting.

A tally of publicly known deliveries, as compiled this week by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, show that more than 20,000 unguided bombs, an estimated 2,600 guided bombs and 3,000 precision missiles — as well as aircraft, ammunition and air defenses — are among the American weapons that already have been shipped since Oct. 7.

Many of the arms shipments that the United States has sent to Israel since the war began in October are classified or have been otherwise kept secret. Nonetheless, what had been delivered by March alone amounts to “an enormous number and variety of weapons, which have played a vital role in helping Israel defend itself,” an analysis by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies found this past spring.

With Americans divided over U.S. support for the war, and the domestic defense industry already stretched thin by the war in Ukraine, some defense officials and weapons experts have predicted that arms shipments to Israel could soon level off, or be phased out over the next decade.

Human rights groups and some U.S. lawmakers have demanded that the United States stop supplying weapons that could be used by Israel in potential war crimes, though security experts and some members of Congress have argued that ending American military aid would make Israel more vulnerable to attacks by Iran and its regional proxies.

In May, the State Department concluded that Israel had most likely violated humanitarian standards by failing to protect civilians in Gaza, but it did not find specific instances that would justify withholding American military aid.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration halted the shipment of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs to Israel after concerns swelled that such explosives had killed thousands of Palestinian civilians in southern Gaza. President Biden said in May that he would block the delivery of weapons that could be fired into densely populated areas of Rafah, in southern Gaza, where more than a million Palestinians were sheltering.

But this month, Mr. Biden loosened some of the restrictions to allow the delivery of 1,700 500-pound bombs that were part of the paused shipment of 2,000-pound bombs.

The seeming inconsistency has prompted some weapons experts to explore how — or whether — Israel can become less reliant on the United States, in part by building up its own weapons industry. Such development would cost Israel tens of billions of dollars, the defense foundation’s analysis said, for a country that already spends around 4.5 percent of its gross domestic product on defense — more than any NATO country.

“It seems unlikely that Israel could attain across-the-board weapons and munitions self-sufficiency anytime soon (and some say ever),” the analysis said.

But many Israelis want the their leader to agree to a cease-fire that would allow for the release of the 115 remaining hostages in Gaza, at any cost. While Mr. Netanyahu spoke of “intensive efforts” to secure the release of the captives, he did not publicly embrace a proposed truce deal being negotiated.

In Israel, the dissonance between the repeated applause from U.S. lawmakers during his address and a grimmer domestic reality was apparent on the front pages of Thursday’s Hebrew-language newspapers, which were dominated by news that the military had recovered the bodies of several hostages from the Palestinian enclave.

Yedioth Ahronoth, a popular mainstream daily, split its front page horizontally, devoting the top half to portraits of four captives whose bodies were recovered, and the bottom half to the speech. A fifth body was subsequently identified by the Israeli authorities, who said all five had been killed on Oct. 7, during the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel that prompted the war.

The visit to Washington by Mr. Netanyahu, who arrived at the White House on Thursday afternoon for meetings with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, was intended to shore up support for the war both at home and abroad.

But there is a widespread sense of government failure in Israel as the war has dragged on, with the fighting having expanded to multiple fronts and the leadership offering little vision for what comes next.

“It was a speech devoid of disappointments or good tidings,” wrote Ben-Dror Yemini in Thursday’s Yedioth Ahronoth. “Never, ever was there such a large chasm between high words and contradictory actions.”

In Israel, critics of Mr. Netanyahu have accused him of putting his political survival above the fate of the hostages. Two far-right parties that he relies on for his governing coalition have threatened to quit should he agree to a deal on terms that they would deem a surrender to Hamas.

Seeking better terms, Mr. Netanyahu has delayed the departure of an Israeli negotiating team that was meant to set out from Israel on Thursday for talks with mediators in Qatar. An Israeli official with knowledge of the talks said only that the team would depart for Qatar sometime after Mr. Netanyahu’s meeting with Mr. Biden, without specifying a new date.

The Hostages Families Forum, a grass-roots organization advocating for the captives’ release, declared a “crisis of trust” in a statement on Thursday, accusing Mr. Netanyahu of obstructing a deal.

“This foot-dragging is a deliberate sabotage of the chance to bring our loved ones back,” the forum said in its statement, adding, “It effectively undermines the negotiations and indicates a serious moral failure.”

In late October, the Health Ministry published the names of about 7,000 people who had been killed in the first 17 days of the war. Of the thousands of Israeli airstrikes and other explosions during that time period, only a fraction — 350 events — were analyzed by Airwars for the study released Wednesday. Airwars said it was able to independently identify 3,000 names, most of which matched the ministry’s list.

As a result, Airwars said, it felt confident the ministry’s casualty reporting system at the beginning of the war was reliable and that it was working to analyze additional strikes and explosions.

Airwars reported that more recent ministry figures had become less accurate after the destruction of the territory’s health system.

The war has, however, clearly devastated the civilian population in Gaza. On Wednesday, the ministry, whose death toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, said that more than 39,000 people had been killed.

The ministry is ultimately overseen by Hamas, and Israeli officials have expressed skepticism about its accuracy. Early in the war, before the Health Ministry released its list, President Biden said he had “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using,” though he and other American officials have since expressed more confidence in them, urging Israel to do more to protect civilians.

Israel says that it tries to avoid civilian casualties, but notes that Hamas often bases its forces in densely populated urban areas.

Airwars focused its research only on the early days of the conflict. It said that there were many other strikes and explosions apart from the nearly 350 it documented during the period.

About 75 percent of the names documented by Airwars appeared on the Health Ministry’s October list, a rate that showed that “both capture a large fraction of the underlying reality,” said Mike Spagat, a professor at Royal Holloway College at the University of London who reviewed the findings and advised on the research process.

Many international officials and experts familiar with the way the Health Ministry verifies deaths in Gaza — drawing on information from morgues and hospitals across the territory — say its numbers are generally reliable. But there is evidence that the quality of the data has declined, as infrastructure has collapsed in many parts of the territory. In December, after many hospitals had closed, the Health Ministry announced it was supplementing its hospital and morgue-based tally with “reliable media sources.”

In its analysis, Airwars verified that at least some militants were included on the list of those killed in the first three weeks of the war. Israel’s military said in July that it had killed or captured around 14,000 combatants in Gaza since the war began, a number that cannot be independently confirmed.

In one instance, an Israeli airstrike on Oct. 19 targeted and killed Maj. Gen. Jihad Muheisan, commander of the Hamas-run National Security Forces, along with 18 members of his family, including nine children and six women, Airwars found. General Muheisan and all but one of the 18 were included on the Health Ministry’s list.

Because Airwars only analyzed incidents in which civilians were reportedly harmed, researchers said they could not estimate how many militants were included on the Health Ministry’s list.

Other studies have also backed the reliability of the ministry’s early death toll.

Johns Hopkins researchers found that there was no evidence that it was inflated through early November. And researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who analyzed ID numbers from the October list found there was “no obvious reason” to doubt the data.

Airwars used the same methodology in its Gaza analysis as it has for conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Libya and others, said Emily Tripp, the group’s director.

The pace of those killed in Gaza in October stands out, she said. Airwars tracked more allegations of harm to civilians in October than in any month in its decade of monitoring, according to the report, including the U.S.-led fight against Islamic State and Russia’s bombardment of Syria. About a quarter of those included at least 10 civilians reportedly killed, which is much higher than other conflicts it has monitored.

“We have, per incident, more people dying than we’ve seen in any other campaign,” Ms. Tripp said. “The intensity is greater than anything else we’ve documented.”

He offered a retort to harsh international criticism that Israel had done far too little to protect civilian lives in Gaza and was starving the population there. And he remained defiant in the face of the global pressure over a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, giving little hint that Israel would back down from the fight anytime soon.

Here are some of the highlights.

He name-checked both Biden and Trump.

Mr. Netanyahu was careful to walk a middle path, thanking both Democrats and Republicans, including President Biden and the Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, for their support.

“I know that America has our back,” he said. “And I thank you for it. All sides of the aisle. Thank you, my friends.”

He expressed particular appreciation for Mr. Biden’s “heartfelt support for Israel after the savage attack” led by Hamas on Oct. 7. But he also made a point of praising Mr. Trump, who as president was more receptive to some of his expansionist policies.

He denied that Israel was starving Gazans.

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has requested arrest warrants for war crimes and crimes against humanity for Mr. Netanyahu and the leaders of Hamas. But Mr. Netanyahu rejected accusations by the court’s prosecutor that Israel was deliberately cutting off food to Gazans.

“Utter, complete nonsense, a complete fabrication,” he declared.

Israel, he said, has enabled more than 40,000 aid trucks to enter Gaza during the war.

However, U.N. aid officials say Israel is responsible for most obstacles to getting aid to desperate Palestinians. Mr. Netanyahu said members of Hamas were stealing the goods.

He rejected blame for the heavy civilian loss.

More than 39,000 people have been killed in Gaza during the war, according to the Gaza health authorities, who do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. But Mr. Netanyahu again rejected Israeli responsibility. He denied deliberately targeting noncombatants and said the Israel Defense Forces had worked hard to protect them.

“The I.D.F. has dropped millions of fliers, sent millions of text messages and hundreds of thousands of phone calls to get Palestinian civilians out of harm’s way,” he said.

But those directives often confuse Gaza civilians who struggle to find any safe place to shelter amid the incessant airstrikes and bombardments that have lasted for more than nine months.

Mr. Netanyahu again blamed Hamas, saying it “does everything in its power to put Palestinian civilians in harm’s way” by using schools, hospitals and mosques for military operations.

International law requires combatants to avoid using such “civilian objects” for military objectives. But Israel’s critics say that Hamas’s use of civilian sites does not absolve Israel of its obligations under international law to protect civilians, nor does it explain the scale of death and destruction.

He played up diversity in Israeli society.

During the speech, Mr. Netanyahu called on a few Israeli soldiers in the audience to stand up, including one of Ethiopian descent and another who is Bedouin, citing their heroism and their important role in the Israeli military. It appeared to be an effort to convey that Israel and its military are not homogenous.

“The Muslim soldiers of the I.D.F. fought alongside their Jewish, Christian and other comrades in arms with tremendous bravery,” Mr. Netanyahu said.

Ethiopian Jews and Bedouins in Israel are often marginalized, but the prime minister offered a different portrayal.

He sketched out a vague vision of peace.

The Israeli prime minister has been accused by critics in Israel and some diplomats of dragging his feet in reaching a cease-fire deal with Hamas to end the bloodshed, possibly to preserve his own political longevity.

But Mr. Netanyahu said “a new Gaza could emerge” if Hamas was defeated and Gaza “demilitarized and de-radicalized,” adding that Israel “does not seek to resettle Gaza.”

He turned to past world conflicts to make his case, noting that the approach of demilitarization and de-radicalization was used in Germany and Japan after World War II.

There is broad concern, however, that in Gaza the trauma of the war will yield a new generation of radicalization.

The common enemy? Iran, he said.

“If you remember one thing, one thing from this speech, remember this: Our enemies are your enemies,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “Our fight is your fight. And our victory will be your victory.”

Iran, he said, wants to impose “radical Islam” on the world and sees the United States as its greatest enemy because it is “the guardian of Western civilization and the world’s greatest power.”

He argued that Iran-backed militias like Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, whatever their aggression against Israel, are actually fighting a different war.

“Israel is merely a tool,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “The main war, the real war, is with America.”

Many of the victims were taken to the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, where photos taken by a photographer for Agence France-Presse showed bloodied children being rushed in for care.

Mohammad Saqer, the director of nursing at Nasser Hospital, said he had treated three children for severe blast wounds, which he said were most likely from bombardment. Dr. Saqer, who has worked at the medical center for 18 years, said few shipments of medicine and fuel were arriving at the hospital, making treatment difficult.

“So many dead, so many wounded, not enough beds,” Dr. Saqer said. “The situation’s disastrous. We’re rationing electricity, turning off air conditioning, trying to save what we can.”

Patients at the facility have been forced to share beds, and the hospital was “under enormous strain as the killing, wounding and maiming of people continues relentlessly in southern Gaza,” the aid group Doctors Without Borders wrote on social media earlier in the week.

The United Nations said that 150,000 people fled Khan Younis on Monday alone, the day the renewed Israeli offensive began, and that “large-scale displacement” from the area was ongoing.

In Al-Mawasi, the coastal town where the Israeli military ordered Khan Younis residents to go, there is “no space for even a single tent due to the overwhelming number of people desperate for safety,” the Palestinian Red Crescent said. The group said that one of its ambulances came under fire on Thursday as medics were trying assisting injured civilians.

Fighting in recent days has centered around three towns near the city of Khan Younis — Bani Suaila, Al Zanna and Al Qarara. On Wednesday, the Israeli military discovered the bodies of five Israelis in Al Qarara who had been killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The bodies were found in a tunnel used by militants.

“Hamas exploited the humanitarian area and used it to hold our hostages captive,” the military said in a statement on social media. Hamas did not issue a response on its social media channels.

Israeli officials say 115 hostages remain in Gaza, including roughly 40 who are presumed dead.

The military said on Thursday that Hamas had launched several rockets toward Israel from the humanitarian area in Khan Younis earlier in the day. But the strike did not reach Israel and at least one rocket hit a U.N.-run school in Al Qarara, killing two people and injuring several others, the military said.

Schools have not been operating during the war and most of them have become shelters for displaced people. UNRWA, the United Nations’ main relief group for Palestinians that runs schools, did not confirm the attack.

The Israeli military said its forces operating in Khan Younis had killed dozens of Hamas militants over the past day and struck more than 60 terror targets.

Gaza’s health ministry said Israeli military strikes on areas in eastern Khan Younis killed at least 14 people early Thursday, with airstrikes reported in southern Gaza and tanks advancing in central Rafah.

Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defense, said Israeli forces had killed at least 17 people on Thursday in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, and in Khan Younis, Israeli snipers shot and killed at least one person while he was moving down Salah al-Din Street, Gaza’s main north-south route, he said. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the incident.

Anushka Patil and Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.