At least 17 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli attack on the Gaza town of Zawayda on Saturday, health officials said, while Israel issued new evacuation orders citing Hamas rocket attacks nearby.
According to health officials in the Hamas-administered area, most of those killed belonged to the same family, including eight children and four women.
“They were sleeping in their beds, children and babies, when three missiles hit their house,” said neighbour Abu Ahmad Hassan, adding that the owner of the house was a well-known businessman. “There is no military activity here,” he said.
The Israeli military responded by saying it had attacked terrorist targets in the area from where rockets were fired at its troops. It also said the incident was being reviewed.
An Israeli military spokesman on Saturday posted instructions in Arabic on Twitter directing people in parts of central Gaza, including the Maghazi district near Jawaida, to move to a designated humanitarian zone.
He said that terrorists were firing rockets from those places and the army was preparing to take action against them.
Reuters could not immediately confirm whether an evacuation order had been given in some areas of Zawaida or whether residents had received instructions from the army. Residents said thousands of people were leaving Maghazi.
On Friday, the army declared two parts of the southern town of Khan Younis, which Israel has declared a humanitarian zone, as dangerous and ordered people to evacuate, saying militants were regularly firing rockets from there.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Friday’s orders, which also cover other areas of the enclave outside the humanitarian areas, affected nearly 170,000 displaced people.
“This is one of the largest evacuation orders ever to affect the territory, and has reduced the size of the so-called ‘humanitarian zone’ to approximately 41 square kilometres, representing 11 percent of the total area of the Gaza Strip,” the OCHA report said.
Residents in the central part of the enclave reported that Israeli tanks on Saturday advanced into the eastern region of Deir al-Balah, an area they have never invaded before and where millions of displaced Palestinians have taken refuge.
The Israeli military said its forces had killed dozens of militants since Friday, some of whom had fired rockets from central and southern Gaza.
Most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have been displaced by the 10-month-long Israeli offensive that has left much of the territory in ruins.
Ceasefire talks suspended
Ceasefire talks in Doha, brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt, were suspended on Friday, and negotiators will meet again next week to reach a deal to end the fighting between Israel and Hamas and release the remaining hostages.
US President Joe Biden said on Friday that no party in the Middle East should undermine efforts to reach a ceasefire and hostage release deal that now appears within sight, though he warned that the talks were “far from over.”
Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri responded by saying that reports of a settlement were “misleading claims”.
The war began on Oct. 7 when the militant Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
Israel’s subsequent military campaign has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials. Israel has lost 330 soldiers in Gaza and says at least a third of the Palestinians killed were fighters.