Written by Nidal Al-Maghribi
CAIRO (Reuters) – Israeli forces waging a weeks-long offensive in the northern Gaza Strip ordered any remaining residents of Beit Hanoun to leave the town on Sunday, residents said, in reference to Palestinian militants firing rockets from the area.
Residents said that instructions directed to residents to leave caused a new wave of displacement, although it was not immediately clear how many people were affected.
Israel says its campaign, which has been ongoing for nearly three months in northern Gaza, targets Hamas activists and prevents them from regrouping. The army says its instructions to civilians to evacuate are aimed at keeping them out of harm's way.
Palestinian and UN officials say there is no safe place in Gaza and that evacuations are worsening humanitarian conditions for residents.
Much of the area surrounding the northern cities of Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahia has been depopulated and destroyed, raising speculation that Israel intends to keep the area as a closed buffer zone after the end of the fighting in Gaza.
The Israeli army announced its new incursion into the Beit Hanoun area on Saturday.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had lost contact with people still trapped in the town, and was unable to send teams to the area due to the raid.
Today, Friday, Israeli occupation forces stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. The army said it was being used by activists, which Hamas denies.
The World Health Organization said in a post on the X website that the raid on the hospital, one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of Gaza, put the last major health facility in the area out of service.
The Ministry of Health said that some patients from Kamal Adwan were evacuated to the Indonesian Hospital, which is out of service, and paramedics were prevented from joining them there. Other patients and staff were transferred to other medical facilities.
Health officials said on Sunday that an Israeli tank shell hit the upper floor of the National Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City near the radiology department.
Meanwhile, Palestinian health officials said Israeli military raids across the Strip killed at least 16 people on Sunday. The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said in a statement that one of those raids resulted in the killing of seven people and the injury of others at Al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City.
The Israeli army said it was studying the report.
The Israeli campaign against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 45,300 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave. Most of the 2.3 million people were displaced, and much of Gaza was reduced to rubble.
The war was sparked by a Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage into Gaza, according to Israeli statistics.
(Reporting and writing by Nidal Al-Mughrabi, Editing by William MacLean)
