A first group of civilian evacuees from Gaza crossed into Egypt under a Qatari-mediated deal on Wednesday while Israeli forces bombed the Palestinian enclave from land, sea and air anew as they pressed their offensive against Hamas fighters.
Another blast shook Jabalia, Gaza’s largest refugee camp, on Wednesday, a day after Palestinian health officials said an Israeli air strike killed about 50 people and wounded 150 there. Israel said it had killed a Hamas commander in Tuesday’s attack.
There was no immediate word on possible casualties from the second explosion, but footage showed smoke billowing above the camp and people sifting through piles of rubble and carrying away the injured.
“It is a massacre,” said one witness at the scene of what other witnesses said was an Israeli air strike in the Fallujah district of the large camp in the urban sprawl of north Gaza.
The Israeli military later issued a statement saying its fighter jets had struck a Hamas command and control complex in Jabalia “based on precise intelligence”, killing the head of the Islamist group’s anti-tank missile unit, Muhammad A’sar.
The people being evacuated to Egypt had been trapped in Gaza since the start of the war more than three weeks ago. They were driven through the Rafah border crossing and underwent security checks, officials said.
Dr Fathi Abu Al Hassan, a US passport holder, described hellish conditions inside Gaza without water, food or shelter.
“We open our eyes on dead people and we close our eyes on dead people,” he said while waiting to cross into Egypt.
“If this happened in any other country... even in the desert, (people) will combine together to (help) us,” he said.
The evacuees included at least 320 foreign passport holders and dozens of severely injured Gazans, three Egyptian sources and a Palestinian official said, the first beneficiaries of the deal brokered between Egypt, Israel and Hamas.
A diplomatic source briefed on Egyptian plans said some 7,500 foreign passport holders would be evacuated from Gaza over the course of about two weeks, adding that Al Arish airport would be made available to fly people out. Diplomats said initial foreign national evacuees were expected to travel by road to Cairo and fly out from there.
“An important step in the right direction, which we need to build on,” Tor Wennesland, the United Nations’ Middle East peace envoy, said on X social media platform, hailing the opening of Rafah to the first evacuees.
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