CAIRO: Following a new round of rockets fired into Israel by Hamas fighters, Israeli soldiers on Wednesday issued additional orders for Palestinians living in north Gaza who were among the first to be targeted during the fighting.
The evacuation orders for multiple neighborhoods in Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, the now-largely destroyed towns that Israeli tanks surged into at the beginning of Israel’s military invasion, were issued online by Army spokesman Avichay Adraee.
The army spokesperson advised everyone to “evacuate immediately to the known shelters in the center of Gaza City for your own safety.”
Three Palestinians were killed, according to doctors, by an Israeli airstrike on a house in the neighboring neighborhood of Al Tuffah in Gaza City.
Ten Palestinians lost their lives in two different Israeli strikes in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza later on Wednesday. According to medics, one attack killed three riders on a motorcycle west of Khan Yunis, and another struck a tent encampment in Abassan town east of the city, killing seven more.
“On several fronts”
Following Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s July 31 killing in Tehran, Iran, Israel is preparing for an anticipated attack in the northern region from Iran and its close Lebanese partner, Hezbollah. Meanwhile, fighting has persisted in the Gaza Strip.
In addition to claiming on Wednesday that its forces had struck “weapons-making facilities” in the bustling neighborhood of Deir al Balah in central Gaza, where tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been displaced by the fighting have found refuge, the Israeli military claims to have killed dozens of Gaza fighters in recent days.
Israeli tanks also shelled two of the eight ancient refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, Nuseirat and Bureij, in other central regions. Palestinian organizations claim they may still fire limited rocket salvoes into Israel and conduct ambush operations using explosives against Israeli soldiers and armored vehicles.
A close ally of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, claimed on Tuesday that it had fired rockets into Israel in retaliation for Israeli massacres of civilians.
The UN Palestinian refugee organization UNRWA is one of the warehouses where the Israeli military claimed that during the course of the previous week, Hamas had fired rockets from launchers hidden close to two international humanitarian relief and distribution warehouses. It said that Israeli forces had attacked certain locations.
