GAZA: EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has called for a “political solution” to end the “madness” in Gaza after the territory’s health ministry said an Israeli strike on a school had killed 30 people.

“Ceasefire has to happen now. International Humanitarian Law has to be respected. Humanitarian assistance to civilians needs to be delivered at scale. Only a political solution will end this madness,” Borrell said in a post on X.

In another post, he said “yet another attack on a school used as a shelter for internal displaced people in Khan Younis… At the same time an already very fragile population is asked to relocate again and again, with no end in sight”.

More states and institutions have condemned Israel’s latest attack on a school, Al Jazeera reports.

Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris condemned the bombing, saying it was a “further demonstration of brutal, unconscionable violence”. He added that targeting an area populated with displaced families is “inhumane and despicable”.

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry also denounced the attack and called for global action, saying that “this massacre is a continuation of the hostile acts and crimes committed by the Zionist entity (Israel) against defenceless civilians”.

The Arab League, meanwhile, criticised the international community’s silence on the Israeli military’s “heinous massacre” and called on the UN Security Council to pressure Israel to end the “genocide”.

Several primary care centres and medical points in Khan Younis have been shut down following evacuation orders by the Israeli army, Anadolu reports according to the enclave’s health ministry.

“Due to the increasing number of areas forcibly evacuated in southern Gaza, several primary health care centres are now out of service,” the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry warned that the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, the only hospital still operational despite numerous challenges, may also shut down, posing a “certain health catastrophe.”

It said that “the increasing number of displaced persons living without access to water and amidst sewage and piled-up waste, without personal hygiene supplies, makes conditions ripe for the spread of polio and other diseases.”

According to the latest statistics from the media office in Gaza, over 1.7 million displaced persons have contracted infectious diseases due to displacement and overcrowding.

The ministry urged international and UN organisations to swiftly intervene to protect the remaining health institutions and provide necessary resources and supplies.