CAIRO: The Israeli army on Wednesday issued a new evacuation order for Palestinians in areas of northern Gaza that were first struck at the start of the war with Hamas in October, after the militants fired a fresh volley of rockets into Israel.
Army spokesman Avichay Adrai posted evacuation orders in several districts of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia, two towns largely destroyed by Israeli tanks at the start of Israel's ground offensive.
“Hamas and terrorist organizations are firing rockets from your territory towards the State of Israel. The IDF will act against them forcefully and immediately,” Adrai said in a message to Palestinian residents via text and social media.
“For your safety, evacuate immediately to known shelters in the center of Gaza City,” an army spokesman said.
In a nearby Gaza City neighborhood, al-Tufah, three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house, medics said.
Later on Wednesday, 10 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza. Medics said three people were killed on a motorcycle west of Khan Yunis, and seven were killed by tank fire at a tent camp in the town of Abasan, east of the city.
far ahead
The war in the Gaza Strip continues even as Israel prepares for an expected attack in the north from Iran and its close Lebanese ally Hezbollah after Israel killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital, Tehran, on July 31.
The Israeli army has killed dozens of Gaza insurgents in recent days and said on Wednesday that it had attacked weapons-making facilities in the Deir al-Balah district of central Gaza, where thousands of Palestinians displaced by the war have taken refuge. shelter
In other central areas, Israeli tanks shelled Nussarat and Bureij, two of the eight historic refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. Israel says Hamas fighters use civilian infrastructure to cover and hide operations posts and weapons caches; Hamas has been denying this.
The rebels continue to carry out attacks with explosive devices on Israeli troops and armored vehicles and are still able to launch limited rocket salvos into Israel.
On Tuesday, Islamic Jihad, a close ally of Hamas, said Israel fired rockets into Israel in response to what it called a “massacre of civilians”.
The Israeli military said that in the past week Hamas had fired rockets from embedded launchers near two international humanitarian aid and distribution warehouses, including those of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA. Israeli forces attacked those sites, it added.
Hamas-led militants launched the Gaza war on October 7 with cross-border attacks on Israeli communities, killing 1,200 Israelis and foreigners and taking nearly 250 hostages, according to Israeli officials.
In response, Israel has launched a relentless offensive on Gaza that has reduced the heavily populated coastal strip to rubble, killing 39,600 Palestinians and injuring more than 91,500, according to figures from the Gaza Health Ministry.
The Hamas-led ministry does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its death list.
