Two separate Israeli strikes killed at least 13 people in Gaza. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Two separate Israeli strikes killed at least 13 people, including women and children, in Gaza on Saturday (November 9, 2024), Palestinian medical officials said, as Israel announced the first delivery of aid in weeks to the war-battered northern Gaza.

One of the strikes hit a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City’s eastern Tufah neighborhood, killing at least six people, Gaza’s Health Ministry said. Two local journalists, a pregnant woman and a child were among the dead, the ministry said. The Israeli army said the strike targeted a militant belonging to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, offering no evidence or further detail.

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Another seven people were killed when an Israeli strike hit a tent in the southern city of Khan Younis where displaced people were sheltering, according to Nasser Hospital. It said the dead included two women and a child. The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the blast.

COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, said Saturday that 11 aid trucks containing food, water and medical equipment reached the far north of the enclave, including the urban refugee camp at Jabaliya. It is the first time any aid has reached the far north of the enclave since Israel began a fresh military campaign there last month.

The announcement comes days ahead of a U.S. deadline demanding that Israel improve aid deliveries across Gaza. Experts have said there is a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in parts of northern Gaza.

Israel’s new offensive has focusing on Jabaliya, a densely populated refugee camp where Israel says Hamas had regrouped. Other areas affected by the new campaign include Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, situated just north of Gaza City.

The U.N. estimates that tens of thousands of people remain in the area. Earlier this week, the Gaza Health Ministry said that there were no ambulances or emergency crews currently operating north of Gaza City.

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, the Israeli army has struck several schools and tent camps, packed with tens of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes by Israeli offensives and evacuation orders. The conflict has left 90% of Palestinians in Gaza displaced, according to U.N. figures.

The military has continually accused Hamas of operating from within civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including schools, U.N. facilities and hospitals. The contesting narratives over the use of schools and hospitals go to the heart of 13 month conflict.

In July, Israeli airstrikes hit a girls’ school in Gaza’s central city of Deir al-Balah, killing at least 30 people sheltering inside. Israel’s military said it targeted a Hamas command center used to direct attacks against its troops and store “large quantities of weapons.”

Khan Younis, Gaza:

Israel expanded evacuation orders in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip overnight, forcing tens of thousands of Palestinian residents and displaced families to leave in the dark as explosions from tank shelling reverberated around them.

The Israeli military said it was attacking operatives from the Hamas group – which administered Gaza before the war – who were using those areas to stage attacks and fire rockets.

On Saturday, an Israeli airstrike on a school where displaced Palestinians were sheltering in Gaza City killed at least 90 people, according to the civil defence service, prompting an international outcry. 

The Israeli military said it had struck a Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant command post, an allegation the two groups rejected as a pretext, and killed 19 operatives.

In Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip, the evacuation instruction covered districts in the centre, east and west, making it one of the largest such orders in the 10-month-old conflict, two days after tanks returned to the east of the city.

The announcement was posted on X and in text and audio messages to residents’ phones: “For your own safety, you must evacuate immediately to the newly created humanitarian zone. The area you are in is considered a dangerous combat zone.”

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, said people in Gaza were trapped and had nowehere to go.

“Some are only able to carry their children with them, some carry their whole lives in one small bag. They are going to overcrowded places where shelters are already overflowing with families. They have lost everything and need everything,” he said.

The Israeli army said it had struck around 30 Hamas military targets in the previous 24 hours, including military structures, anti-tank missile launch posts, and weapons storage facilities.

The Islamic Jihad armed wing said fighters fired mortar bombs against Israeli forces massing in the eastern areas of Khan Younis.

Later on Sunday, an Israeli airstrike near the Khan Younis market at the center of the city killed four Palestinians and wounded several others, medics said.

Lines of smoke rose from areas where Israeli planes carried attacks in the eastern and western parts of the city. Residents said two multi-floor buildings were bombed.

Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza since the war broke out last October and the toll is rising by the day, the Gaza health ministry says.

Gaza health officials say most of the fatalities have been civilians but Israel says at least a third are fighters. Israel says it has lost 329 soldiers in Gaza.    

Israel began its assault on Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Tens Of Thousands Forced To Leave Overnight

Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced from their homes, according to the United Nations, while their narrow strip of land has largely been reduced to a wasteland of rubble.

Palestinian and United Nations officials say there are no safe areas in the enclave. Areas designated as humanitarian zones, like Al-Mawasi in western Khan Younis where residents were being sent, have been bombed several times by Israeli forces.

Tens of thousands left their homes and shelters in the middle of the night, heading west toward Mawasi and north toward Deir Al-Balah, already overcrowded with hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

“We’re exhausted. This is the 10th time I and my family have had to leave our shelter,” said Zaki Mohammad, 28, who lives in the Hamad housing project in western Khan Younis, where the occupants of two multi-floor buildings were ordered to leave.

“People are carrying their belongings, their children, their hopes and their fears and running towards the unknown, because there is no safe place,” he told Reuters via a chat app. “We are running from death to death.” 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip flee from Hamad City, following the evacuation order by the Israeli army to leave parts of the southern area of Khan Younis, Sunday (August 11, 2024)
| Photo Credit: AP

Hundreds of Gazans fled the northern neighbourhoods of Khan Yunis on Sunday (August 11, 2024) after Israel issued fresh evacuation orders ahead of a new operation against Palestinian militants it says have taken refuge there.

Early in the morning the army dropped leaflets and sent mobile phone messages telling residents to leave the Al-Jalaa area of Khan Younis, which was already considered a humanitarian safe zone.

The military warned Al-Jalaa will become a “dangerous combat zone”, forcing Palestinians already displaced numerous times by the Gaza war to pack up and leave looking for a new shelter.

Families gathered their meagre belongings and left the area, fearing fresh missile strikes and fighting, AFP journalists reported.

Crowds of people, mainly from the Hamad neighbourhood in Al-Jalaa, left with whatever they could lay their hands on, some loading mattresses, clothing and cooking utensils into pick-up trucks, while others simply walked with their bags.

Young men and women escorted elderly family members, while others tried to catch a ride to safer zones.

“The IDF (Israeli army) is about to operate against the terrorist organisations in the area and therefore calls on the remaining population left in the Al-Jalaa neighbourhood to temporarily evacuate,” the military said in a statement.

Khan Younis, Gaza’s main southern governorate, had already been hit with several evacuation orders in the past weeks and devastated by months of bombardment that have reduced residential blocks to piles of rubble.

“Just in the past few days, more than 75,000 people have been displaced in southwest Gaza,” said on X Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN refugee agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA.

Mr. Lazzarini said the new evacuation orders sent many people fleeing from the early hours of Sunday.

“Some are only able to carry their children with them, some carry their whole lives in one small bag,” he said.

“The people of Gaza are trapped and have nowhere to go.”

The Army also carried out a strike in Khan Younis on Sunday (August 11, 2024), wounding several people who were treated at Nasser hospital.

“They were all civilians and they were shopping in the market when a missile hit and left people lying in the streets,” said Awad Barbakh, a resident.

The military has often returned to areas of Gaza where it had previously fought Palestinian militants, only to find them resurfacing or to act on intelligence about the location of hostages.

Gaza’s war broke out after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has so far killed at least 39,790 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.

Gaza:

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Saturday that Israel’s military operation around Khan Yunis has killed about 170 people and wounded hundreds since it started on Monday.

“Since the beginning of the Israeli military operation in the Khan Yunis area, we are talking of approximately 170 martyrs and hundreds of wounded,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

He said many people had been displaced again on Saturday as the Israeli operation continued.

“The questions is where will these residents go?” Basal said.

“Anyone who sees the situation in Khan Yunis will witness thousands of people spread out on the ground, on the roads, in areas that unfortunately are not suitable for living.

“With no other options available, they are exposing themselves to death.”

Earlier on Saturday the military issued new evacuation orders for residents of the southern city, after retrieving the bodies of five Israelis and warning of new operations.

The United Nations said more than 180,000 Palestinians have fled Khan Yunis since the Israeli operation began on Monday.

The evacuation orders and “intensified hostilities” have “significantly destabilised aid operations”, it added, reporting “dire water, hygiene and sanitation conditions” across the Palestinian territory.

The Israeli military said it launched the operation to halt rocket fire from the area, which already saw heavy fighting earlier this year.

On Wednesday, it said troops had retrieved the bodies of five Israelis from the area.

They had been killed during the Hamas attacks of October 7 and their bodies taken back to Gaza, the military said.

On Saturday, it ordered residents from more parts of Khan Yunis “to temporarily evacuate to the adjusted humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi” — the second such adjustment made to the safe zone within a week.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Palestinians shelter in a tent camp which was recently attacked in Israeli strikes, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip on July 18, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The Israeli military on July 22 called on Gazans to clear out of the eastern parts of the city Khan Younis, saying it was preparing to “forcefully operate” against renewed rocket fire and militant activity from the area, which it had designated as a humanitarian zone.

Also read: Israeli strikes in southern, central Gaza kill more than 60 Palestinians, including in ’safe zone’

To allow this, the military said it was adjusting the borders of a humanitarian zone in order to keep the civilian population away from areas of combat.