Israeli forces have ordered a new evacuation of a besieged city in northern Gaza, residents say By Reuters
Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) – Israeli forces waging a weeks-long offensive in northern Gaza ordered all residents remaining in Beit Hanoun to leave the city on Sunday, citing rocket fire from Palestinian militants from the area, residents said.
The order for residents to leave sparked a new wave of displacement, though it was not immediately clear how many people were affected, residents said.
Israel says its nearly three-month campaign in the northern Gaza Strip is aimed at targeting Hamas militants and preventing them from regrouping. His instructions to civilians to evacuate are meant to protect them from danger, the military says.
Palestinian and United Nations officials say that no place is safe in Gaza and that the evacuations are worsening the humanitarian conditions of the population.
Much of the area around the northern towns of Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahiya has been cleared of people and leveled, fueling speculation that Israel intends to keep the area as a closed buffer zone after the fighting in Gaza ends.
The Israeli army announced its new attack on the Beit Hanoun area on Saturday.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Services said it had lost communication with people still trapped in the city and was unable to send teams to the area because of the raid.
On Friday, Israeli forces stormed the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza. The military said it was used by militants, which Hamas denies.
An attack on a hospital, one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of Gaza, put the last major health facility in the area out of action, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement on X.
Some patients were evacuated from Kamal Adwan to an Indonesian hospital, which is not operational, and doctors were prevented from joining them there, the Health Ministry said. Other patients and staff were taken to other medical facilities.
On Sunday, health officials said an Israeli tank shell hit the top floor of Al-Ahly Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City near the X-ray department.
Meanwhile, Palestinian health officials said at least 16 people were killed in Israeli military strikes on the enclave on Sunday. In one of these attacks, seven people were killed and others were wounded at the Al-WAFA hospital in Gaza City, according to a statement by the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service.
Israel’s military said the attack targeted members of Hamas’ “Air Defense Unit,” who were operating out of the compound, saying the site no longer serves as a hospital. The militants were said to be using the compound to plan and carry out attacks on Israeli troops in the near future.
Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 45,300 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave. Most of the population of 2.3 million have been displaced, and much of Gaza is in ruins.
The war was triggered by a Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli figures.
(Reporting and writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi Editing by William Maclean)
