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 where Palestinians fear they will not be able to return.
As Israeli tanks advanced in Beit Lahiya a month into a new push on northern Gaza, dozens of families streamed out, arriving at schools and other shelters housing displaced people 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, audio and text messages sent to residents’ phones, a 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” and they and residents say no aid has entered Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun since the raid began on Oct 5.
The Israeli military says it was forced to evacuate Jabalia and start evacuating nearby Beit Lahiya on Wednesday so it can take on Hamas militants 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.
Palestinian medics said Israeli fire had killed six people in Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight historic refugee camps, four in Beit Lahiya and seven in Rafah, near the border with Egypt in southern Gaza.
The Israeli military said forces operating in Jabalia had killed about 50 militants in the past 24 hours and had facilitated the exit of Palestinians from combat zones through organized routes.
Palestinian and UN officials say there are no safe areas in the enclave, where most of its 2.3 million people have been internally displaced.
‘MORE BRUTAL’
Israel’s more than year-long ground campaign to annihilate the Islamist movement has turned much of the Gaza Strip into a wasteland with an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.
“With Trump back, (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu will become more brutal,” Ahmed said, referring to the U.S. election winner former president Donald Trump, who portrays himself as a more reliable ally for Israel.
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.
In Tulkarm, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, 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, with a down-syndrome disability.
Violence has surged across the West Bank since the start of the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza.
Hundreds of Palestinians – including armed fighters, stone-throwing youths, and civilian bystanders – have been killed in clashes with Israeli security forces. Dozens of Israelis have been killed in Palestinian street attacks over the past year.
The Palestinian health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and militants in its death toll tallies, put the number at 775, including 167 children.
(Reporting and writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Additional reporting by James Mackenzie in Jerusalem and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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