Palestinians fled parts of southern Gaza in droves on Tuesday as Israeli forces ordered evacuations and launched deadly strikes amid clashes with militants.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said the evacuation order for most areas east of Khan Yunis and Rafah along the Egyptian border would affect 250,000 Palestinians.
Witnesses described intense bombing and shelling around Khan Yunis, in the heaviest fighting in southern Gaza’s main city since Israeli troops withdrew in early April after a prolonged battle.
A hospital source in Khan Yunis said shelling killed at least eight people and wounded more than 30 others.
The bombardment followed a rocket barrage aimed at southern Israel on Monday morning. The Islamic Jihad militant group, allied with Hamas, claimed responsibility for the attack.
While Israel did not explicitly announce a military operation in southern Gaza, previous evacuation orders have typically preceded major battles.
An evacuation of Rafah nearly two months ago signalled the beginning of a Israeli offensive that displaced many Palestinians and blocked a crucial aid route.
The latest evacuation order issued late Monday has renewed fears among Palestinians, many of whom have been displaced multiple times by the Israel-Hamas war that started in October, with thousands fleeing.
More Palestinians fled eastern Khan Yunis on Tuesday, travelling by car, on foot, or by horse or donkey carts, carrying their belongings, an AFP photographer said.
The Israeli evacuation order sparked “fear and extreme anxiety”, said Ahmad al-Najjar, a 26-year-old resident of Bani Suhaila.
His family had initially fled on Monday night but returned because “we did not know where we would go”, he said.
UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Wateridge said nearly all the estimated 250,000 Palestinians would “move” from the area targeted by the Israeli evacuation order.
– ‘Maelstrom of misery’ –
Six consecutive days of intense battles followed a similar evacuation order issued last week for the Gaza City district of Shujaiya.
The UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza Sigrid Kaag expressed deep concern about the new evacuation order in the Khan Yunis area during a briefing to the UN Security Council in New York.
“The war… has unleashed a maelstrom of human misery” across Gaza where 1.9 million people, or 80 percent of the territory’s population, were displaced, Kaag said on Tuesday.
An AFP correspondent reported artillery shelling in the northern area on Tuesday, and witnesses said gun battles raged on.
The Israeli military said its forces were operating in Shujaiya, central Gaza and Rafah, where air strikes and troops engaged in combat.
Over the past day, the Israeli air force “struck approximately 30 terror targets” across Gaza, said a military statement.
In Shujaiya, Palestinian militants “were eliminated and dozens of terrorist infrastructure sites above and below ground were dismantled, including tunnel shafts”, it added.
Witnesses in central Gaza reported strikes on the Nuseirat refugee camp, where the Red Crescent reported at least one fatality, a child.
Mohamed al-Jalees, displaced from Shujaiya to Nuseirat, helped clear the rubble and search for survivors.
“A missile struck our neighbours’ house,” he said. “We rushed to check on them, and some were rescued alive (but) we found a martyred child.”
“This is our daily routine.”
Months of on-and-off talks towards a truce and hostage release deal have made little progress, even after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared more than a week ago that the “intense phase” of the war was winding down.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday that “we’ve heard the Israelis talk about a significant downshift in their operations in Gaza”.
“It remains to be seen.”
On Tuesday Netanyahu said Israel would not “capitulate to the winds of defeatism”, reiterating that the war would continue until Hamas is eliminated and all hostages held by militants released.
– ‘Failure’ –
Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive aimed at eradicating the Palestinians militants in Gaza has killed at least 37,925 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
The military announced two soldiers were killed in central Gaza, bringing to 319 its death toll since ground operations began in late October.
The war has also led to soaring tensions on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where the army has been trading near daily fire with the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, a key Hamas ally, sparing fear of a wider conflict.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah said it launched dozens of Katyusha rockets at army barracks in northern Israel following an Israeli strike that killed a civil in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli army said it identified “approximately 15 projectiles… crossing from Lebanon, and 10 were successfully intercepted” without causing casualties.
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