Thousands of Palestinians flee as Israel pounds Gaza
Palestinians fled parts of southern Gaza in droves on Tuesday as Israeli forces launched deadly strikes and clashed with militants after issuing an evacuation order.
The Israeli army on Monday ordered the evacuation for most areas east of Khan Yunis and Rafah along the Egyptian border. It did not explicitly announce a military operation, but such orders have typically preceded major offensives.
Witnesses described intense bombardment on Tuesday around Khan Yunis, in some of the heaviest fighting in southern Gaza's main city since Israeli troops withdrew in early April. A hospital source said shelling killed at least eight people.
The assault followed a rocket barrage aimed at southern Israel on Monday morning that the Islamic Jihad militant group, allied with Hamas, claimed responsibility for.
The latest evacuation order 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 escaped from eastern Khan Yunis, 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.
The United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said a quarter of a million people had been impacted since Israel's army issued the evacuation order.
The UN's humanitarian affairs agency, OCHA, said the evacuation order applied to about a third of the Gaza Strip and would heighten the suffering of civilians.
"People are left with the impossible choice of having to relocate – some most likely for the second or third time – to areas that have barely any space or services, or staying in areas where they know heavy fighting will take place," it said.
- '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.
