The Israeli army on Monday ordered the evacuation of several areas in the southern Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had already fled in May, after a salvo of rockets was fired towards Israel from that region.
Witnesses said many residents had fled the areas, in Rafah and Khan Younis governorates, after being ordered to evacuate. AFP footage showed displaced families fleeing again amid the ruins in Khan Younis, on foot or crammed onto trailers.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged Sunday that the army was fighting a “difficult fight” in the Palestinian territory, nearly nine months into the war sparked by Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7.
After launching a ground offensive on October 27 in the northern Gaza Strip, the Israeli army gradually moved south, ordering the evacuation of the areas it was targeting.
On May 7, it launched a ground operation in Rafah, a town on the border with Egypt, then presented as the final stage of the war against the Islamist movement, forcing a million Palestinians to flee, according to the UN.
But in recent weeks, fighting has intensified again in several areas that the army had claimed to control, particularly in the north, while the offensive continues in Rafah.
On Monday, a new evacuation was ordered in the towns of al-Qarara, Bani Suheila and other towns in the eastern Khan Younis and Rafah governorates, the army’s Arabic-language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, announced.
Hours earlier, Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian armed group allied with Hamas, had claimed responsibility for rocket attacks on Israeli towns near Gaza.
The army announced that “20 projectiles” had been fired from the Khan Younis region.
“Projectiles were intercepted and others fell in southern Israel,” without causing any casualties, said the army, which responded with artillery fire.
– “Hand-to-hand” combat –
In the north, Israeli soldiers continued on Monday their operations launched on June 27 in Shujaiya, a neighborhood in the east of Gaza City.
According to the army, “about twenty terrorists were eliminated there by dozens of air strikes” and “many terrorists were eliminated during combat.”
An AFP correspondent saw helicopters firing on Shujaiya, where Hamas reported fighting.
Between 60,000 and 80,000 people have fled the east and northeast of Gaza City in recent days, according to the UN.
“We fled Shujaiya. The situation is very difficult. We have no place to stay. We continue to look for water, but we cannot find any,” said a Palestinian who sought refuge in western Gaza City.
On Monday, the army announced the death in combat of a soldier in southern Gaza, bringing to 317 the number of soldiers killed since October 27.
“Our forces are operating in Rafah, Shujaiya, all over Gaza,” Netanyahu said Sunday. “It’s a tough fight that we’re waging on the ground, sometimes hand-to-hand, and also underground,” he added, referring to the tunnels dug by Hamas since it seized power in Gaza in 2007.
– Accusations of “torture” –
On Monday, dozens of Palestinian prisoners, including the director of Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital, Mohammed Abu Salmiya, were released by Israel and transferred to hospitals in Gaza, according to a medical source.
At Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Mr Salmiya said he was subjected to “severe torture” during his seven months in detention.
The domestic security agency, the Shin Bet, presented the release as a way “to free up space in detention centers.”
But Mr Netanyahu said it was a “grave mistake”. “The place of this man, under whose responsibility our hostages were killed and held, is in prison,” he said.
The attack carried out on October 7 by Hamas commandos infiltrated from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
Of the 251 people kidnapped during the attack, 116 are still being held hostage in Gaza, including 42 who have died, according to the army.
In retaliation, the Israeli army launched an offensive in Gaza that has so far left 37,900 dead, including 23 in 24 hours, mostly civilians, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government.
Mr Netanyahu says he wants to continue the war until Hamas, considered a terrorist organisation by Israel, the United States and the European Union, is eliminated and the hostages are freed. The Islamist movement is demanding a permanent ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from the territory.
The war has caused massive population displacement and a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip, where water and food are in short supply. Thousands of children are suffering from malnutrition, according to the World Health Organization.
