Israeli forces bombard refugee camps in central Gaza
Israeli forces bombarded Palestinian refugee camps in central Gaza and issued orders telling residents to evacuate the area Tuesday, signs that the military plans to expand its ground offensive into a third section of the besieged territory.
The opening of a potential new battle zone threatens to bring a new wave of destruction and displacement in a war that Israel has said will last for months as it vows to crush Hamas after its Oct. 7 attack. Israeli forces have been engaged in heavy urban fighting in northern Gaza and in the southern city of Khan Younis, driving Palestinians into ever-smaller parts of the territory in search of refuge.
A UN humanitarian team leader said on Monday that many Palestinians in the strip have followed the evacuation orders and sought safety in designated areas only to find there is little space left in the densely populated enclave.
Gemma Connell, deployed in Gaza for several weeks now, described what she called a “human chess board” in which thousands of people, displaced many times already, are on the run again and there is no guarantee a destination will be safe.
“People were heading up south with mattresses and all of their belongings in vans and in trucks and in cars in order to try and find somewhere safe,” said Connell, who on Monday visited the Deir al-Balah neighborhood in central Gaza.
Despite international pressure for a cease-fire and US calls for a reduction in civilian casualties, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday warned that the fight “isn’t close to finished.”
Israel’s offensive has been one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history. More than 20,915 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, whose count doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Meanwhile, there were new signs of the Israel-Hamas war enflaming tensions around the region.
Residents of central Gaza on Tuesday described a night of shelling and airstrikes shaking the Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij camps. The camps are built-up towns, housing Palestinians driven from their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war and their descendants – and now are also crowded with people who fled the north.
In the afternoon, the Israeli military issued an order calling on residents to evacuate a belt of territory the width of central Gaza, including Bureij, urging them to move to the nearby town of Deir al-Balah.
The UN Security Council last week called for immediately speeding up aid deliveries to Gaza. But so far there has been little concrete sign of a change in entry of aid, which the UN has said it struggles to distribute because many areas are cut off by fighting.
AP and REUTERS contributed to this report.