DEIR AL-BALAH: The Israeli military ordered the evacuation Monday of part of a crowded area in the Gaza Strip it had designated a humanitarian zone, saying it is planning an operation against Hamas militants there.
The order triggered a new flight of Palestinians, many of whom had taken refuge there just in the past weeks.
Thousands of Palestinians, many carrying backpacks and accompanied by children, walked down dusty roads under the scorching sun.
Dilapidated cars with belongings tied on top maneuvered past buildings flattened by previous strikes. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel's air and ground campaign.
“We do not know where we are walking,” said Kholoud Al Dadas, as she clutched her children.
“This is our seventh or eighth time we have been displaced. While we were sleeping in our homes, they started shooting at us, bombing from everywhere.” Moments later, she collapsed in exhaustion.
Reflecting the shrinking space for Palestinians, the new evacuation order reduces by some 10 square kilometers (4 square miles) the 60-square kilometer (23 square mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee to escape its offensives.
Most of the area covered by the new order comprises parts of the southern city of Khan Younis, which had filled up with people since early May as they fled Israel troops assaulting Rafah, further south. The number of people in the evacuation zone was not immediately known, U.N. officials said.
On Monday, multiple Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, citing figures from Nasser Hospital.
Associated Press video showed a pall of smoke drifting over the city after one explosion.
Another strike hit outside Al-Aqsa Hospital in the central town of Deir-Al-Balah, where many people were living in tents on the street, killing one person and wounding three.
The Israeli military said it is planning an operation against Hamas militants who have embedded themselves in the humanitarian zone and used it to launch rockets toward Israel.
Israel first declared the zone early in the war, centered on Muwasi, a largely rural area of dunes on the Mediterranean coast. At the time, in November, the military said it would only strike there with precision hits on individual Hamas leaders, saying it was “not a safe zone, but it is a safer place than any other” in Gaza.
It expanded the zone in May to take in people fleeing Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population at the time had crowded.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the toll from Israel’s nine-month war against Hamas in Gaza has surpassed 39,000 Palestinians killed and 89,800 wounded. The ministry’s count does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
