More families stream out of north Gaza, as tanks push deeper

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By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) -Israeli forces stepped up bombardment across the Gaza Strip on Thursday and ordered more evacuations, creating a fresh wave of displacement from northern Gaza, to which Palestinians fear they will not be able to return.

Palestinian health officials said at least 10 people had been killed and several others wounded in an Israeli air strike on a school housing displaced families in Shati refugee camp in Gaza City.

The Israeli military said the strike targeted a Hamas command center embedded inside the compound that previously served as a UN-run school. It accused Hamas of exploiting civilian facilities for military purposes, which the group denies.

As Israeli tanks advanced in Beit Lahiya, a month into a new push on northern Gaza, dozens of families streamed out. They arrived at schools and other shelters in Gaza City with whatever belongings and food they could bring.

Drones hovered overhead broadcasting evacuation orders, which were also carried on social media outlets and on audio and text messages sent to residents’ phones, one displaced man said.

“After they displaced most or all of the people in Jabalia, now they are bombing everywhere, killing people on the roads and inside their houses to force everyone out,” the man told Reuters via a chat app, giving only one name, Ahmed, for fear of repercussions.

Palestinian officials say Israel is carrying out a plan of “ethnic cleansing”. Residents say no aid has entered Jabalia, Beit Lahiya or Beit Hanoun since the operation began on Oct 5.

The Israeli military says it was forced to clear Jabalia and start clearing nearby Beit Lahiya on Wednesday in order to take on Hamas militants who it says have regrouped there.

It denied press reports that people evacuated from northern Gaza would not be allowed to return and said it was continuing to allow aid into northern Gaza and the Jabalia area, where it said it was engaged in “intense combat”.

“The statement attributed to the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) in the past 24 hours, claiming that residents of northern Gaza will not be allowed to return to their homes, is incorrect and does not reflect the IDF’s objectives and values,” it said.

It said 300 trucks of aid from the United Arab Emirates had arrived at the port of Ashdod and would be sent into Gaza via the Erez crossing in the north and Kerem Shalom in the south.

The army posted new evacuation orders to residents in neighbourhoods near and inside Gaza City, citing rocket launches from there by Palestinian militants. The new orders covered the northern part of the Shati camp and three other neighbourhoods in Gaza City.

PALESTINIANS NERVOUS AT TRUMP VICTORY

Palestinian medics said Israeli fire had killed six people in Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight historic refugee camps, as well as four people in Beit Lahiya and seven in Rafah, near the border with Egypt in southern Gaza.

Later on Thursday, Palestinian media outlets said dozens of people were killed and wounded in an Israeli air strike at a house belonging to the Mabhouh family in Jabalia. The health ministry didn’t confirm the death tally.

The Israeli military said it wasn’t aware of the incident, in response to a request for comment from Reuters.

The Israeli military said forces operating in Jabalia had killed about 50 militants in the past 24 hours and had helped Palestinians to exit combat zones through organised routes.

Palestinian and U.N. officials say there are no safe areas in the enclave, most of whose 2.3 million people have been forced to leave their homes.

Israel’s ground campaign to annihilate the Islamist movement, now more than a year old, has turned much of the Gaza Strip into a wasteland suffering a humanitarian catastrophe.

Many Palestinians are watching nervously to see if Republican former President Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election will strengthen U.S. support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump campaigned portraying himself as a more reliable ally for Israel than incumbent President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.

More than 43,300 Palestinians have been killed in more than a year of war in Gaza, health authorities in the enclave say.

The war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Violence has also surged across the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the start of the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza.

In Tulkarm, Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man during a raid, medics said, adding that an Israeli drone had wounded five other people, including a mother and her son, who had learning difficulties.

Hundreds of Palestinians – including armed fighters, stone-throwing youths and civilian bystanders – have been killed in clashes with Israeli security forces.

The Palestinian health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and militants in its casualty figures, put the number at 775, including 167 children.

Dozens of Israelis have been killed in Palestinian street attacks over the past year.

(Reporting and writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Additional reporting by James Mackenzie in Jerusalem and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Editing by Philippa Fletcher, Kevin Liffey, Alexandra Hudson and David Gregorio)