The Israeli military has issued an evacuation order to civilians to temporarily move from part of its designated humanitarian zone in southern Gaza ahead of a military operation termed a “forceful operation” against armed groups in the area.
The military said the operation is necessitated by “significant terrorist activity and rocket fire” from eastern neighborhoods of the city of Khan Younis. It told residents to head to the “adjusted” al-Mawasi humanitarian area.
The announcement was immediately followed by intense Israeli air and artillery strikes in and around Khan Younis, according to Palestinians.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said no less than 14 people, including six children and four women, had been killed.
Residents were urged to donate blood at Nasser hospital in western Khan Younis to help treat the large number of casualties being brought to the facility.
Khan Younis was destroyed during an Israeli offensive earlier in the year, but large numbers of people returned there after Israeli troops began an operation in the southernmost city of Rafah in May.
At the beginning of July, tens of thousands were again displaced after the Israeli military issued a fresh evacuation order for other eastern neighbourhoods of Khan Younis as well as nearby towns and villages and were instructed to go to the humanitarian zone – which stretches along the coast from al-Mawasi to the central town of Deir al-Balah. This was despite warnings from the UN that it was already overcrowded with tents and lacking basic services.
Israel has also carried out several deadly strikes in the humanitarian zone in the past two weeks, targeting Palestinian fighters operating there.
The Gaza health ministry on 13 July, had put the death toll at 90 of people who had been killed in an Israeli strike inside al-Mawasi that targeted the head of Hamas’s military wing.
The Israeli military on Friday expressed strong optimism that Mohammed Deif was among the dead, but that Hamas was hiding what had happened to him. The military also confirmed again that the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis brigade was killed in the strike.
In another development on Monday, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) accused Israeli forces of firing at a marked UN convoy on their way to Gaza City.
One armoured car was hit by at least five bullets while waiting near an Israeli checkpoint south of the Wadi Gaza river valley on Sunday, wrote Philippe Lazzarini on X, formerly Twitter.
The vehicle was severely damaged and UN personnel ran for cover, but there were no casualties, he added.
Lazzarini said the convoy’s movement had been co-ordinated with Israeli authorities and demanded that “those responsible must be held accountable”.
The Israeli military said it was investigating the report.
Israel launched a campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
The number of deaths since the military operations began in Gaza is 38,980, according to the territory’s health ministry.
Source: BBC News
