Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said in response to French President Emmanuel Macron’s comments that Hamas, not Israel, was to blame for the civilian deaths, AFP reports.

Netanyahu repeated that Israel was trying to avoid harming civilians but that Hamas was preventing them from moving to safe areas and using them as “human shields” — a charge Hamas denies.

Palestinians reported Israeli strikes or sniper fire at two hospitals and a school in Gaza. The bodies of 50 people killed in a strike on Gaza City’s Al-Buraq school were taken to the Al-Shifa hospital, its director said.

The toll could not be independently verified, though AFP journalists saw corpses covered by blankets lying in the hospital courtyard.

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