Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 23 Palestinians yesterday, local health officials said, as the Israeli military expanded evacuation orders to tens of thousands of residents across the enclave.
The Israeli military resumed its campaign against Hamas in Gaza a week ago, shattering a two-month ceasefire. Since then, nearly 700 people, mostly women and children, have been killed, Palestinian health officials say.
Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population has already been displaced by the fighting multiple times during nearly 18 months of war and is facing worsening shortages of food and water after Israel suspended aid deliveries earlier this month.
The Israeli army yesterday told residents in all northern border towns to evacuate, saying Palestinian rockets had been fired at Israel from the area.
The affected towns include Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Shejaia in Gaza City. Orders were also issued for areas in Khan Younis and Rafah in the south.
“For your safety, you must move immediately south to known shelters,” the military said in its orders to residents in Jabaliya, the largest of Gaza’s historic refugee camps.
Palestinian and United Nations officials say there are no safe areas in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the renewed offensive aimed to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining 59 hostages it is holding in Gaza. About 24 of them are believed to be still alive.
Hamas, which accuses Israel of abandoning the January 19 ceasefire deal, said it was co-operating with a new effort, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, to restore calm and conclude the three-phase ceasefire agreement.
According to some Hamas sources, there has been no breakthrough.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200. Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry.
l Israel will take more territory in Gaza and fight until Hamas is wiped out if the group keeps refusing to free remaining hostages, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said.
He spoke as mediators continued efforts to salvage Gaza’s ceasefire deal shattered by Israel’s renewal of air and ground war on March 18 after it and Hamas failed to agree on terms for an extension of the two-month-old truce.
The Israeli military said last week that its forces had begun a focused ground operation in the central and southern Gaza Strip after it resumed bombardments in the besieged enclave.
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