CAIRO: Israeli forces on Wednesday issued new evacuation orders for Palestinians in areas of northern Gaza that were among the first to be hit at the start of the war with Hamas in October after the militants fired a fresh volley of rockets at Israel.
Army spokesman Avichay Adraee released evacuation orders for several neighborhoods in Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, two now largely destroyed towns that Israeli tanks stormed at the start of Israel's ground invasion.
“Hamas and terrorist organizations are firing rockets from your area towards the State of Israel. The IDF will act against them strongly and immediately,” Adraee said in a message sent via SMS and social media to Palestinian residents.
“For your own safety, evacuate immediately to known shelters in central Gaza City,” an army spokesman said.
In the nearby neighborhood of Gaza City, Al-Tuffah, an Israeli airstrike on a house killed three Palestinians, medics said.
Later on Wednesday, 10 Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. Medics said one attack killed three people on a motorcycle west of Khan Younis, while seven others were killed in tank shelling that hit a tent camp in the town of Abassan, east of the city.
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Fighting in the Gaza Strip continues even as Israel prepares for an expected attack on the north from Iran and its close Lebanese ally Hezbollah following the July 31 assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital Tehran.
Israel's military says it has killed dozens of Gazan militants in recent days and said on Wednesday that troops struck a weapons manufacturing facility in the bustling Deir Al-Balah neighborhood in central Gaza, where tens of thousands of Palestinians displaced by the fighting have arrived. shelter.
In other central areas, Israeli tanks shelled Nuseirat and Bureij, two of the eight historic refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. Israel says Hamas militants use civilian infrastructure to cover and hide operational sites and weapons caches; Hamas denies this.
The militants say they continue ambushing Israeli troops and armored vehicles with explosive devices and are still able to fire limited rocket salvos at Israel.
On Tuesday, Islamic Jihad, a close ally of Hamas, said it had fired rockets at Israel in response to what it called Israeli “massacres of civilians.”
Israel's military said that over the past week, Hamas fired rockets from launchers located near two international humanitarian aid and distribution depots, including the Palestinian UN refugee agency UNRWA. Israeli forces hit those locations, he added.
Hamas-led militants launched the Gaza war on October 7 with a cross-border rampage into Israeli communities, killing 1,200 Israelis and foreigners and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli records.
In response, Israel launched an unrelenting assault on Gaza that reduced much of the densely populated coastal strip to ruins, killing more than 39,600 Palestinians and injuring more than 91,500, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The Hamas-led ministry does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its death lists.
