The Israel-Gaza war has been ongoing since October 7 (File)
Israel on Saturday called on Palestinians in more areas of the southern Gaza city of Rafah to evacuate and head to what it calls an expanded humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi, in a further indication that the military is moving forward with its plans for a ground attack against Rafa.
In a post on the social network
The Palestinian Health Ministry said at least 37 Palestinians, 24 of them from central Gaza, were killed in overnight airstrikes across the enclave, including in Rafah.
“They threw leaflets in Rafah and said: from Rafah to al-Zawayda is safe, people should evacuate there, and they did, and what happened to them? Dismembered bodies? There is no safe place in Gaza,” said Khitam Al-Khatib. , who said he lost at least 10 relatives in an airstrike on a family home on Saturday, told Reuters.
Al-Zawayda is a small town in the center of the Gaza Strip that is crowded with thousands of displaced people from across the enclave.
The Israeli military said its aircraft had struck dozens of targets across the Strip over the past day, adding that its ground troops had eliminated fighters in Zeitoun over the past few hours.
An Israeli air strike killed at least seven people in a house in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya, all from the same family, doctors said.
In Rafah, residents told Reuters that new evacuation orders from the Israeli military covered areas in the city center and left little doubt that Israel planned to expand its ground offensive there.
“The situation is very difficult, people are abandoning their homes in panic,” said Khaled, 35, a resident of the Shaboura neighborhood, an area where the new evacuation orders were issued.
The Israeli military said it was continuing operational activity against Hamas fighters in eastern Rafah and on the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing.
Despite heavy US pressure and alarm expressed by residents and aid groups, Israel said it would press ahead with an incursion into Rafah, where more than 1 million displaced people have sought refuge during the seven-month war.
Israeli tanks captured the main road dividing the eastern and western sections of Rafah on Friday, effectively encircling the eastern side, in an attack that caused Washington to delay the delivery of some military aid to its ally.
Israel says it cannot win the war without eradicating thousands of Hamas fighters it believes are deployed in Rafah.
Around 300,000 Gazans have so far advanced towards Al-Mawasi, according to Israeli military estimates released on Saturday.
The war was triggered by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, in which around 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli records.
Israel’s military operation in Gaza has killed around 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The bombing devastated the coastal enclave and caused a profound humanitarian crisis.
Two vital crossing points for delivering aid to Gaza were still closed on Saturday: Palestinian news agency WAFA said the Rafah crossing was closed for a fifth day, while another crossing, Kerem Shalom, was closed for about a week .
The latest evacuation orders came hours after internationally mediated ceasefire talks appeared to be faltering, with Hamas saying Israel’s rejection of the truce offer it had accepted had left things back to square one.
The Palestinian group Hamas also hinted that it was reconsidering its negotiating policy. He did not elaborate on whether a review would mean tightening the terms to reach an agreement, but said he would consult other allied factions.
Israel says it wants to reach a deal under which the hostages would be released in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, but it is not prepared to end the military offensive.
‘Exhausted’
In Deir Al-Balah, in the center of the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of people were sheltering, Palestinians mourned their relatives during funerals on Saturday.
“Here they are, in pieces, here is my sister-in-law, headless, my aunt is headless, what injustice is this? I have lived in tents for the last seven months,” said Khatib, sitting near bodies wrapped in white shrouds with the names of the men and women killed.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is under increasing pressure over its military campaign, including from its longtime ally the United States.
The Biden administration said Friday that Israel’s use of U.S.-supplied weapons may have violated international humanitarian law during its operation in Gaza, in its strongest criticism yet of Israel.
But the administration stopped short of a definitive assessment, saying that due to the chaos of the war it could not look into specific cases in which the use of these weapons might be involved in alleged violations.
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
This story originally appeared on Ndtv.com read the full story
