35 Palestinians killed in Gaza, Israel issues new evacuation orders

CAIRO: Israeli forces issued new evacuation orders in the north of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and carried out military strikes which Palestinian medics and media said had killed at least 35 people since Monday night.

An airstrike late on Monday damaged two houses in the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, killing at least 20 people, the Palestinian official news agency WAFA and Hamas media said.

Ten were killed in central areas of the Palestinian enclave - six in separate airstrikes on Gaza City and the town of Deir Al-Balah, and four in the town of Al-Zawayda around midnight on Monday, medics and health officials said. At least five others were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia north of Gaza City, medics said later on Tuesday.

The Israeli military said, without giving details, that its forces had “eliminated terrorists” in the central Gaza Strip and Jabalia area. Israeli troops had also located weapons and explosives over the past day in the southern Rafah area, where “terrorist infrastructure sites” had been eliminated, it said.

Later on Tuesday, Israeli planes dropped leaflets over Beit Lahiya ordering residents who have not yet left their homes and shelters housing displaced families to quit the town completely. “To all those who remained at homes and shelters, you are risking your lives. For your safety you have to head south,” said the leaflet, which was written in Arabic.

Palestinians said the new attacks and Israeli orders for people to evacuate were aimed at emptying areas to create buffer zones. Israel says the evacuations are meant to keep civilians out of harm’s way as its troops battle Hamas fighters. Hundreds of Palestinian gunmen have been killed or captured in the area of Jabalia over the past month, the military says.

More than 43,300 Palestinians have been killed in more than a year of war in Gaza, the authorities in Gaza say, and much of the territory has been reduced to ruins. Announcing plans for a rare transfer of patients out of Gaza, a World Health Organisation official said more than 100 people would be evacuated from Gaza on Wednesday, including children suffering from trauma injuries and chronic diseases.

They will travel via the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel before flying to the United Arab Emirates, said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Some will then go on to Romania, he said, adding that 12,000 people were awaiting transfer. He said he was hopeful it would be facilitated by Israeli authorities.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said at least seven people were killed on Tuesday during an Israeli military raid and airstrikes. The Israeli military said its aircraft had targeted a group of gunmen and that its forces had arrested 60 militants.

Violence has surged in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, with almost daily sweeps by Israeli forces that have involved thousands of arrests and regular gunbattles between security forces and Palestinian fighters.