At least 27 Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a school in northern Gaza that was serving as a shelter for displaced families, the Hamas-run health ministry says.Dozens more were wounded when the Dar al-Arqam school in the north-eastern Tuffah district of Gaza City was hit,

The Israeli military said it was looking into reports about the deaths at a school-turned-shelter, which came as Israel was intensifying its offensive in Gaza to pressure Hamas to release hostages.

DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — An Israeli airstrike on Thursday killed at least 27 Palestinians sheltering at a school in northern Gaza and wounded 70 more, said Health Ministry spokesman Zaher al-Wahidi, as Israeli forces have expanded their strikes and evacuation orders across the war-torn territory in recent days.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s military is “switching gears” in Gaza, dividing and seizing more parts of the strip, a move experts say could mean Israel establishing deeper, more long-term control over the territory.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel is establishing a new security corridor across the Gaza Strip to pressure Hamas, suggesting it would cut off the southern city of Rafah, which Israel has ordered evacuated,

Israel is “carving up” the Gaza Strip in a bid to pressure Hamas into freeing hostages and will establish a new corridor, parallel to the Egyptian border, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said with the army escalating ground operations in the south.