NUSEIRAT: An AFP photographer near Nuseirat on Saturday, saw scores of Palestinians running for cover in fear of further Israeli strikes.

After the operation, piles of smouldering rubble and chunks of concrete clogged the streets.

The Hamas media office said “the number of victims from the Israeli occupation’s massacre in the Nuseirat camp has risen to 210 martyrs and more than 400 wounded”. Israeli police said an officer was mortally wounded during the rescue operation.

Nuseirat resident Khalil Al-Tahrawi described hearing gun battles and shelling from his shelter. “The Israeli warplanes began bombing us in all directions to cover up the withdrawal process,” he said.

The operation came days after an Israeli strike on the Nuseirat school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which a Gaza hospital said had killed 37 people and the military claimed targeted “terrorists”. UNRWA condemned Israel for striking a facility it said had been housing 6,000 displaced people.

Israel has announced its forces rescued four hostages from a Gaza refugee camp in an operation which the Gaza government media office said left 210 Palestinians dead and hundreds wounded.

In Nuseirat, where the hostages were being held, Palestinians described coming under intense bombardment and heavy gunfire.

The Israeli military said the four, who were in “good medical condition”, had been kidnapped from the Nova music festival during Hamas’s October 7 attack that sparked the conflict, now in its ninth month.

The Israeli military said Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 22, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41, were pulled out in a “complex” mission. It released footage and images of them being extracted by helicopter and then reuniting with loved ones in emotional scenes at a Tel Aviv hospital.

The hostages are among seven that Israeli forces have freed alive since Palestinian fighters seized 251 people in their October attack on southern Israel. There are now 116 hostages remaining in Gaza, including 41 the army says are dead.