Geneva – The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees estimated yesterday that a quarter of a million people had been impacted since Israel’s army issued a new evacuation order for parts of southern Gaza a day earlier.
“We’ve seen people moving, families moving, people starting to pack up their belongings and try to leave this area,” UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Wateridge told reporters in Geneva via video link from Gaza, adding that the agency “estimates that around
250 000 people have been impacted by these orders”.
Israeli forces carried out deadly strikes yesterday on southern Gaza, and battled militants after the army again ordered Palestinians to leave areas near the besieged territory’s border with Israel and Egypt.
Witnesses reported intense bombing and shelling around Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s main city from which Israeli forces withdrew in early April after a devastating months-long battle.
A hospital source in the city said shelling killed eight people and wounded more than 30 others.
The bombardment came after a rocket barrage at southern Israel claimed by the militant group
Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas.
This was followed by an order to evacuate most areas east of the cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah, including the towns of Al-Qarara and Bani Suhaila. Bani Suhaila resident Ahmad Najjar said the Israeli order has spurred “fear and extreme anxiety”, and “there is a large displacement of residents”. Six consecutive days of intense battles followed a similar evacuation order issued last week for the Gaza City district of Shujaiya.
An AFP correspondent reported artillery shelling in the northern
area on yesterday, and witnesses said gun battles raged on.
The military said its forces were operating in Shujaiya, central Gaza and Rafah, where aircraft carried out strikes and troops “ambushed an armed terrorist squad” in a car and killed them.
Other parts of the Gaza Strip were reeling from continued fighting nearly nine months into the war, sparked by Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel. Months of on-and-off talks towards a truce and hostage release deal have meanwhile made little progress, even after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently declared that the “intense phase” of the war was winding down.
Netanyahu, who has faced growing anger from protesters over his handling of the conflict as well as pressure from hardline coalition partners, criticised the release, which he said had been made without his knowledge.
In the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Monday, thousands attended an event calling for an end to the war and “a better reality” for Israelis and Palestinians, according to activist Ibrahim Abu Ahmad. -Nampa