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• Essays in Criticism

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Founded in 1951, by F. W. Bateson, Essays in Criticism soon achieved world-wide circulation, and is today regarded as one of Britain's most distinguished journals of literary criticism. Essays in Criticism covers the whole field of English Literature from the time of Chaucer to the present day. The journal maintains that originality in interpretation must be allied to the best scholarly standards. Moreover, whilst always pursuing new directions and responding to new developments, Essays in Criticism has kept a balance between the constructive and the sceptical, giving the journal particular value at a time when criticism has become so diversified. In addition to the articles, Essays in Criticism has lengthy and searching book reviews, and the 'Critical Opinion' section offers topical discussion on a wide range of literary issues.

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Available issues, table of contents, volume 57, 2007.

• Volume 57, Number 4, October 2007
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Volume 56, 2006

• Volume 56, Number 4, October 2006
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Essays in Criticism

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Ecocriticism by Derek Gladwin LAST REVIEWED: 26 July 2017 LAST MODIFIED: 26 July 2017 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190221911-0014

Ecocriticism is a broad way for literary and cultural scholars to investigate the global ecological crisis through the intersection of literature, culture, and the physical environment. Ecocriticism originated as an idea called “literary ecology” ( Meeker 1972 , cited under General Overviews ) and was later coined as an “-ism” ( Rueckert 1996 , cited under General Overviews ). Ecocriticism expanded as a widely used literary and cultural theory by the early 1990s with the formation of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) at the Western Literary Association (1992), followed by the launch of the flagship journal ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (cited under Journals ) in 1993, and then later the publication of The Ecocriticism Reader ( Glotfelty and Fromm 1996 , cited under Collections of Essays ). Ecocriticism is often used as a catchall term for any aspect of the humanities (e.g., media, film, philosophy, and history) addressing ecological issues, but it primarily functions as a literary and cultural theory. This is not to say that ecocriticism is confined to literature and culture; scholarship often incorporates science, ethics, politics, philosophy, economics, and aesthetics across institutional and national boundaries ( Clark 2011 , p. 8, cited under General Overviews ). Ecocriticism remains difficult to define. Originally, scholars wanted to employ a literary analysis rooted in a culture of ecological thinking, which would also contain moral and social commitments to activism. As Glotfelty and Fromm 1996 (cited under Collections of Essays ) famously states, “ecocriticism takes an earth-centred approach to literary studies,” rather than an anthropomorphic or human-centered approach (p. xviii). Many refer to ecocriticism synonymously as the study of “literature and the environment” (rooted in literary studies) or “environmental criticism” (interdisciplinary and cultural). Ecocriticism has been divided into “waves” to historicize the movement in a clear trajectory ( Buell 2005 , cited under Ecocritical Futures ). The “first wave” of ecocriticism tended to take a dehistoricized approach to “nature,” often overlooking more political and theoretical dimensions and tending toward a celebratory approach of wilderness and nature writing. Ecocriticism expanded into a “second wave,” offering new ways of approaching literary analysis by, for example, theorizing and deconstructing human-centered scholarship in ecostudies; imperialism and ecological degradation; agency for animals and plants; gender and race as ecological concepts; and problems of scale. The “third wave” advocates for a global understanding of ecocritical practice through issues like global warming; it combines elements from the first and second waves but aims to move beyond Anglo-American prominence. There are currently hundreds of books and thousands of articles and chapters written about ecocriticism.

This section looks at some of the pioneering work in ecocriticism, as well as some of the most read work introducing the subject. Meeker 1972 , presenting comedy and tragedy as ecological concepts, connects literary and environmental studies as a cohesive field of study. As an ethnologist and comparative literature scholar, Meeker helped to pioneer the critical discussion of ecocriticism in what he called “literary ecologies.” Following Meeker, Rueckert 1996 (first published 1978) actually coined the term “ecocriticism,” arguing for a way “to find the grounds upon which the two communities—the human, the natural—can coexist, cooperate, and flourish in the biosphere” (p. 107). Love 1996 builds on the work of Meeker and Rueckert by essentially anticipating the explosion of and need for ecocriticism in just a few years. Ecocriticism as a literary and cultural theory significantly expanded in the 1990s—paralleling other forms of literary and cultural theory, such as postcolonialism and critical race studies—largely due to the publication of Glotfelty and Fromm 1996 (cited under Collections of Essays ), the first edited collection of essays and anthology to introduce a comprehensive critical outline of ecocriticism. Buell 1995 , another critically dense and timely study, outlines the trajectory of American ecocriticism by way of Henry David Thoreau as a central figure. Kerridge and Sammells 1998 (cited under Collections of Essays ), which expanded studies in race and class, as well as ecocritical history, followed both Glotfelty and Fromm 1996 and Buell 1995 . Phillips 2003 offers a skeptical and refreshing critique of ecocriticism amid otherwise quite praiseworthy—bordering on mystical—celebrations of “nature” in the scholarship of the 1990s. Garrard 2012 (first published 2004), along with Coupe 2000 (under Anthologies ) and Armbruster and Wallace 2001 (under Nature Writing ), serves as a political and theoretical turn in ecocriticism because it addresses more of the “second wave” concerns about animals, globality, and apocalypse. Clark 2011 is a contemporary overview that integrates a unified critical history of the “waves,” including nature writing, literary periods, theory, and activism, while it also provides sample readings that deploy specific ecocritical methods to literary texts. Garrard 2014 is the most recent overview volume, with many noteworthy ecocritical scholars; it serves as a somewhat updated version of Glotfelty and Fromm 1996 . (See also Anthologies and Collections of Essays for some other notable overviews.)

Buell, Lawrence. The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Looks back at the history of American nature writing through literary analysis—with Thoreau’s Walden as a “reference point”—to establish a history of environmental perception and imagination. It examines how humanistic thought, particularly through literary nonfiction, can imagine a more ecocentric or “green” way of living. (See also Nature Writing .)

Clark, Timothy. The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and the Environment . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Provides updated introductory material to previous studies. It offers an excellent range of topics, and despite serving as an introduction, it employs incisive analysis of previously overlooked issues in introductory books on ecocriticism, such as posthumanism, violence, and animal studies. It is one of the best contemporary overviews.

Garrard, Greg. Ecocriticism . New York: Routledge, 2012.

Examines a wide range of literary and cultural works. Two notable strengths: (1) it acknowledges the political dimension of ecocriticism; and (2) it explores a range of issues, from animal studies and definitions of “wilderness” and “nature,” to postapocalyptic narratives. It is available as an inexpensive paperback. Originally published in 2004.

Garrard, Greg, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Ecocriticism . New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

One of the most ambitious collections to date, with thirty-four chapters, this book is aimed at both general readers and students, but it also revisits the previous twenty years of ecocriticism to offer contemporary readings from the most prominent names in the field. It is an essential work for ecocritics.

Love, Glen. “Revaluating Nature: Toward an Ecological Criticism.” In The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology . Edited by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm, 225–240. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996.

Argues that literary studies must engage with the environmental crisis rather than remaining unresponsive. This essay advocates for revaluing a nature-focused literature away from an “ego-consciousness” to an “eco-consciousness” (p. 232). Originally published in 1990. See also Love’s Practical Ecocriticism: Literature, Biology, and the Environment (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2003).

Meeker, Joseph. The Comedy of Survival: Studies in Literary Ecology . New York: Scribner’s, 1972.

One of the founding works of ecocriticism. It spans many centuries—looking at Dante, Shakespeare, and Petrarch, as well as E. O. Wilson—and analyzes comedy and tragedy as two literary forms that reflect forces greater than that of humans. The “comedy of survival” is at its core an ecological concept.

Phillips, Dana. The Truth of Ecology: Nature, Culture, and Literature in America . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195137699.001.0001

One of the more prominent critiques of ecocritical theory, this book challenges neo-Romantic themes explored by ecocritics, many of which Phillips argues support the use of mimesis as a standard way to read environments, instead of looking at more pragmatic approaches.

Rueckert, William. “Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism.” In The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology . Edited by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm, 105–123. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996.

Notable primarily because it was the first publication to use the term “ecocriticism” as an environmentally minded literary analysis that discovers “something about the ecology of literature” (p. 71). Originally published in 1978.

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Pelosi rebuked to her face during Oxford debate after condemning Americans clouded by 'guns, gays, God'

F ormer House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was rebuked as an "elite" during a recent Oxford Union debate, where she argued that populism in the United States is a threat to democracy.

Pelosi — a self-described "devout" Catholic — said during the April 25 debate that certain Americans, whom she considered to be "poor souls who are looking for some answers," refuse to accept the answers Democrats give them on particular topics due to their beliefs about "guns, gays, [and] God."

Challenging Pelosi's position in the debate about populism, Winston Marshall, a musician who was once a part of Mumford and Sons and now hosts the "Marshall Matters" podcast for The Spectator, spoke in opposition to the Oxford Union motion that "This House Believes Populism is a Threat to Democracy." 

The Oxford Union at the UK's famed university holds itself as a defender of free speech, and has hosted events with numerous U.S. politicians in the past, including former Republican House Speakers Newt Gingrich and Kevin McCarthy.

Marshall argued at the April 25 debate that the meaning of the word "populist" has been changed by "elites [who] have failed" to align with their own narrative.

PELOSI UNIVERSITY SPEECH INTERRUPTED BY ANTI-ISRAEL AGITATORS: 'WARMONGER'

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

"'Populism' has become a word used synonymously with ‘racist.’ We've heard ‘ethno-nationalist,’ we have ‘bigot,’ we have ‘hillbilly,’ ‘redneck,’ we have ‘deplorable,’" Marshall said. Pelosi had argued in her remarks that contemporary American populism currently had an ethno-nationalist character. 

"Elites use it to show their contempt for ordinary people," Marshall said.

Marshall argued that the change in meaning of the word "populist " is "a recent change," and pointed to a 2016 speech delivered by then-President Barack Obama, who he said "took umbrage with the notion that Trump be called a populist."

"If anything, Obama argued that he was the populist. If anything, Obama argued that Bernie was the populist," he said. "Something curious happens. If you watch Obama's speeches after that point, more and more recently, he uses the word ‘populist’ interchangeably with ‘strong man,’ ‘authoritarian.' The word changes meaning. It becomes a negative, a pejorative, a slur."

Highlighting the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021, which he believed to be "a dark day for America, indeed," Marshall said: "I'm sure Congresswoman Pelosi will agree that the entire month of June 2020, when the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, was under siege and under insurrection by radical progressives, those, too, were dark days for America."

At that point, Pelosi raised her hand and said: "There is no equivalence there. . . .  It is not like what happened on January 6th, which was an insurrection incited by the President of the United States."

"My point, though, is that all political movements are susceptible to violence and, indeed, insurrection," Marshall said. "Populism is not a threat to democracy. Populism is democracy. And why else have universal suffrage if not to keep elites in check?"

Marshall said he was "rather surprised" that Pelosi was arguing in favor of the motion as he thought "the left was supposed to be anti-elite" and that the "left was supposed to be anti-establishment."

"Today, particularly in America, the globalist left have become the establishment," he continued. "I suppose for Mrs. Pelosi to have taken this side of the argument, she'd be arguing herself out of a job.

Marshall went on to claim that "populism is the voice of the voiceless" and that the "real threat to democracy is from the elites."

PELOSI ACCUSES MSNBC HOST OF BEING A TRUMP 'APOLOGIST' FOR ADDING CONTEXT TO JOB NUMBERS

"Now, don't get me wrong, we need elites. If President Biden has shown us anything, we need someone to run the countries," he said. "When the president has severe dementia, it's not just America that crumbles, the whole world burns."

Marshal shifted his focus to examining the elites, saying he believes that Trump should have accepted the results of the 2020 presidential election .

"So should Hillary in 2016 , so should Brussels and Westminster in 2016, and so, too, should Congresswoman Pelosi instead of saying the 2016 election was, quote, ‘hijacked.’"

"It was," Pelosi interjected, drawing laughter from those in attendance.

"That doesn't mean we don't accept the results of it," she added.

During his speech in opposition of the motion, Marshall also took aim at the social media companies that suspended Trump from their platforms following the January 6 Capitol protests and the mainstream media .

"Mainstream media elites are part of a class who don't just disdain populism, they disdain the people. If Democrats had put half their energy in delivering for the people, Trump wouldn't even have a chance in 2024 … you've had power for four years. From the fabricated Steele Dossier, to trying to take him off the ballot in both Maine and Colorado, the Democrats are the anti-Democrat party," he said.

"Populism is not a threat to democracy. But I'll tell you what is: It's elites ordering social media to censor political opponents," Marshall said. ". . . It's Brussels, D.C., Westiminster, mainstream media, big tech, big Pharma, corporate collusion and the Davos cronies."

Delivering remarks prior to Marshall, Pelosi said, "Democracy is the rule of law, democracy is free and fair elections, democracy is about independent judiciary, it's about freedom of the press to have transparency and to have accountability of elected officials to the people."

"It's about all of that, and that is everything that the populist regime in Washington, D.C., is against," she added. "Ethno-nationalistic populism, as is the threat to democracy, is about threatening what they call elites, a free press," she said. "It's about fighting issues that relate to free and fair elections, where we have voter suppression to the nth degree under this regime and its resistance to passing the Voting Rights Act, the John Lewis Act, all of that."

At one point, while speaking about those who may consider themselves a part of the populist movement and/or are "poor souls who are looking for some answers," Pelosi said, "We've given them to them, but they're blocked by some of their views on guns – they have the three Gs, guns, gays, God, that would be a woman's right to choose — and the cultural issues cloud some of their reception of an argument that really is in their interest."

The motion debated by Marshall and Pelosi ultimately received a passing vote from those attending the Oxford Union event, 177 to 68.

Original article source: Pelosi rebuked to her face during Oxford debate after condemning Americans clouded by 'guns, gays, God'

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Middle East Crisis U.N. Lowers Count of Women and Children Killed, Citing Incomplete Information

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• Palestinians search for survivors inside a destroyed building in Nuseirat, in central Gaza. Reuters
• Palestinian citizens of Israel marching near Haifa, Israel, to mark the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, when roughly 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes in what became the state of Israel, during the wars surrounding its creation. Ammar Awad/Reuters
• Near the site of a strike in Nuseirat. Ramadan Abed/Reuters
• A march in the southern Israel city of Sderot calling for Israel to reoccupy the Gaza Strip once the war is over. Maya Alleruzzo/Associated Press
• Displaced Palestinians clean rubble from a damaged school in Khan Younis to use as shelter. Associated Press
• Employees of UNRWA inspect a destroyed United Nations school in Nuseirat, in central Gaza. Mohammed Saber/EPA, via Shutterstock
• Watching the recovery effort from a balcony in Nuseirat. Ramadan Abed/Reuters
• Searching for casualties at the site of the strike in Nuseirat. Ramadan Abed/Reuters
• An Israeli military helicopter firing toward Gaza. Amir Levy/Getty Images
• Israeli police arrest an Ultra-Orthodox Jew during a protest against Israel's Independence Day in Jerusalem. Atef Safadi/EPA, via Shutterstock
• Palestinians wait to receive food rations in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza. -/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

How many of Gaza’s dead are women and children? For 10,000, the data is incomplete.

The United Nations has begun citing a much lower death toll for women and children in Gaza, acknowledging that it has incomplete information about many of the people killed during Israel’s military offensive in the territory.

As recently as May 6, the U.N’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its regularly updated online report that at least 9,500 women and 14,500 children were among the dead, out of an overall death toll of 34,735.

Two days later, the U.N. said in another online update that 4,959 women, 7,797 children and 10,006 men had been killed. While the total number of deaths remained roughly the same, a U.N. official said that it was awaiting more identifying information from officials in Gaza for about 10,000 of the dead, so they were not included in the new breakdown of women, men and children.

The change in the U.N.’s numbers — and the confusion over the discrepancy — has added fuel to a debate over the credibility of the Gazan authorities’ tallies of fatalities in the war. The deaths of women and children are seen as an important, if incomplete, indication of how many civilians have been killed, a question that lies at the heart of the criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war.

The change came because the United Nations switched to citing a more conservative source for its numbers — the Gazan Ministry of Health — rather than using Gaza’s Government Media Office, as it had in recent weeks. Both offices are part of the Hamas-run government in the enclave.

Many international officials and experts familiar with the way the health ministry verifies deaths in Gaza — drawing from morgues and hospitals across the territory — say its numbers are generally reliable.

The health ministry says its count of women and children killed is based on the total number of people whose identities it can fully verify — 24,840 individuals in all as of May 13.

More than 10,000 other people have also been killed, the health ministry says, but it does not have their full names, official ID numbers or other information it needs to be certain of their identities. That is why they are not included in the breakdown of women and children killed that is now being cited by the U.N., officials said.

“There’s about another 10,000-plus bodies who still have to be fully identified,” Farhan Haq, a spokesman for the U.N., said on Monday. He added: “The details of those — which of those are children, which of those are women — that will be reestablished once the full identification process is complete.”

Mr. Haq said the United Nations was relying on the data coming out of the health ministry, as it has “in all previous conflicts.”

He added that the U.N. had started using figures from Gaza’s media office because there had been a pause in reporting from the health ministry. But now that the ministry’s casualty reporting was back on line, he said, the U.N. had returned to using its information.

What do Israel and other critics say?

Israeli officials say they are suspicious of the Gazan health ministry’s count. A spokesman for the Israeli military, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, noted that the health ministry does not distinguish in its numbers between combatants and civilians. He also said that Israel sees every civilian death as a tragedy.

After the United Nations issued a lower documented death toll for women and children, Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, called the new numbers “the miraculous resurrection of the dead in Gaza,” saying the United Nations had relied on “fake data from a terrorist organization.”

Elliott Abrams, a veteran American conservative, said in an article for the Council on Foreign Relations on Sunday that it has become “increasingly clear that these numbers represent Hamas propaganda.”

But figures cited by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel are not drastically different from those used by the United Nations. He said last week that Israeli forces had killed about 14,000 Hamas combatants and 16,000 civilians, for a total of around 30,000, without elaborating on the source for those numbers.

Are the new casualty numbers viewed as credible?

In a sign that the U.S. government views casualty figures supplied by the Gaza health authorities as reliable, President Biden cited their overall death toll in his State of the Union speech in March. The United Nations publishes the health ministry’s figures on a website and U.N. leaders refer to them frequently.

A few weeks ago, the health ministry released its latest list detailing the identities of the dead that it had fully documented. It has also released a series of detailed reports explaining how it compiles casualty figures.

Early in the war, when its figures were called into question, the health ministry released a list of names, ages and identification numbers of the dead. Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analyzed that data, in a report published in November in The Lancet , and found “no obvious reason to doubt the validity of the data.”

Airwars, a British organization that assesses claims of civilian harm in conflicts, has matched the names of those reported killed with lists of names released by the health ministry. The vast majority of names match up, said Emily Tripp, the group’s director. Airwars also analyzed a ministry of health list of names issued earlier in the conflict and found that the proportion of children, women and men reported by the ministry roughly aligned with its own data collection, she said.

Neta Crawford, a professor of political science at Oxford University and the founder of the Costs of War project, which examines the consequences of the post 9/11 wars, argued that the figures appeared to have been produced to professional standards.

How are casualty numbers compiled?

International experts who have worked with health officials in Gaza during this and other wars say that hospitals and morgues in the enclave gather and report the names, ID numbers and other details of people who have been killed in the territory.

The detailed count excludes thousands of people reported at hospitals as missing but believed to be buried under rubble ; they are counted as dead only when their bodies are found.

The Gaza media office has consistently provided an overall death toll similar to the one given by the ministry of health, but different and often higher figures for the number of women and children killed.

Ismail Al Thawabateh, the office’s director general, said in an interview that the health ministry listed and categorized an individual as dead only when all of their details had been documented and verified by a next of kin. He did not explain why his office used a breakdown of women and children based on the overall death toll.

“The remaining 10,000 are bodies that have entered the hospitals but until this moment, the next of kin have not been reached yet to verify how they were martyred and completing their information,” he said.

When reached, Ashraf al-Qudra, the Gaza health ministry’s spokesman referred questions to the Ministry of Health’s latest report from May 13.

Patrick Kingsley and Ameera Harouda contributed reporting.

— Matthew Mpoke Bigg ,  Lauren Leatherby and Abu Bakr Bashir

Key Developments

Qatar says cease-fire talks are nearing an impasse, and other news.

Negotiations for a cease-fire in Gaza are at “almost a stalemate,” and the talks have been set back by Israel’s military offensive in Rafah , Qatar’s prime minister said Tuesday. The prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, was asked about the state of the talks at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha. Qatar and Egypt have been acting as intermediaries between Israel and Hamas.

The International Court of Justice said it would hold hearings on Thursday and Friday on South Africa’s request for additional emergency measures to constrain Israel’s operation in Rafah. Last week, South Africa, which has filed a case at the court in The Hague accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, asked the judges to order Israel to withdraw from Rafah , calling it “the last refuge” for Palestinians in the territory. Israel has strongly denied South Africa’s accusations at the court, which has no means of enforcing its orders.

The United Nations said on Tuesday that gunfire that hit the back of a U.N.-marked car in Rafah on Monday and killed a U.N. staff member came from a tank . A U.N. spokesman, Farhan Haq, said that the United Nations has yet to determine who was responsible, though he added that the Israeli military is the only force known to have deployed tanks in Gaza. The staff member who was killed was Col. Waibhav Anil Kale, an Indian citizen who worked for the U.N. Department of Safety and Security, Mr. Haq said. A Jordanian woman who worked for the same agency was wounded and is recovering in a hospital, he said.

Thousands of Israelis attended a far-right Independence Day march on Tuesday in the southern city of Sderot, where Israeli lawmakers, including the country’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the country’s communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, called for the resettlement of Gaza by Israelis.

Britain’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, said attacks on aid trucks bound for Gaza were “appalling” and called for Israel to hold perpetrators to account. His statement on social media Tuesday came a day after a convoy of relief trucks was blocked and vandalized for hours, according to a right-wing Israeli group that planned the blockage. The Israeli police said that suspects had been arrested and that they were investigating.

Israel strikes on a home and a school building kill dozens of people, as fighting rages across Gaza.

Israeli airstrikes overnight killed dozens of people at a family home and a school in the central Gaza Strip, local residents and a hospital spokesman said on Tuesday, as fighting intensified across the territory, with Israeli troops and Hamas fighters battling in the south, while Israeli jets and tanks pounded the north and center.

Witnesses said an Israeli bomb on Monday night destroyed the home of the Karaja family in the town of Nuseirat, where workers spent hours digging through rubble, pulling out both survivors and the dead. Dr. Khalil Degran, a spokesman for Aqsa hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah, said in an interview that 30 people were killed at the house; a rescue worker, Hazem Abu Takyia, told the Reuters news agency that he knew of 15 deaths.

The Israeli military declined to comment on that attack, but confirmed that it had struck a school building early Tuesday in Nuseirat, killing 15 militants, including 10 Hamas fighters, some of whom it accused of participating in the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on southern Israel that ignited the war. In a statement, the military said the school had been used to plan attacks on Israeli soldiers in Gaza, and that some of those killed in the strike were from Hamas’s highly trained Nukhba brigade.

Juliette Touma, a spokeswoman for UNRWA, the primary U.N. aid agency in Gaza, said it could not confirm Israel’s claims.

Dr. Degran, the Aqsa hospital spokesman, said that 12 people were killed at the school and that he did not know their backgrounds.

Reuters and The Associated Press reported that the building, like many of Gaza’s schools, was being used as a shelter for displaced civilians.

In a video report on Tuesday, a U.N. employee, Abu Abdullah Zuhair Abu Rahma, told Reuters that people “came to the school to be safe.”

“The school was hit without any warning,” he said.

Classes were canceled across Gaza when the war broke out, and many schools became shelters for displaced Gazans fleeing from the fighting. A recent study by the Education Cluster, a research group that works with the United Nations, based on satellite imagery, found that well over 80 percent of the schools across the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or severely damaged since the war began, including all of its universities. More than 200 schools have suffered direct hits from missiles, bombs or artillery.

Last November , an Israeli strike on a U.N. school sheltering displaced people killed 24.

Over the weekend, Israel said its forces would return to areas of northern Gaza where it had routed Hamas months ago, because of “intelligence information regarding attempts by Hamas to reassemble.” The scale of the fighting on Tuesday suggests how far those efforts to regroup may have gone.

The Israeli military said its troops were carrying out operations in Jabaliya and Zeitoun in the north, both communities where Israel had claimed to have defeated Hamas earlier in the war.

The Gaza health ministry said on Tuesday that 82 people had been killed in the previous 24 hours.

Fighting also continued in Rafah, a southern city that Israeli forces entered last week, and where more than one million Palestinians had sought safety from months of Israeli bombardment in other parts of the enclave. The United Nations said Tuesday that in a little over a week, about 450,000 people had fled Rafah.

Israel said its forces killed members of “several armed terrorist cells in close-quarters encounters” near the Rafah crossing with Egypt, a vital entry point for humanitarian aid, which has been closed since Israeli forces seized control of it last week. Israeli and Egyptian officials have blamed each other for the closure.

On Tuesday, Hamas said it destroyed an Israeli troop carrier in eastern Rafah, killing and injuring several soldiers who were evacuated by helicopter. The Israeli military declined to comment specifically on this attack.

— Liam Stack and Nader Ibrahim Liam Stack reported from Tel Aviv and Nader Ibrahim reported from London.

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