Israel orders the evacuation of an area designated as a humanitarian zone in Gaza

Israel orders the evacuation of an area designated as a humanitarian zone in Gaza

 

The Israeli military, claiming it is preparing an assault against Hamas militants in Khan Younis, including sections of Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp where hundreds are seeking safety, ordered the evacuation of a congested area of Gaza on Saturday that had been classified as a humanitarian zone.

 

Israel claims that rocket fire coming from the area is what prompted the decision. In a zone set aside for Palestinians escaping other areas of Gaza, this is the second evacuation order issued in a week. Several Palestinians have been forced to flee their homes numerous times in an attempt to find refuge amid Israel's harsh aerial and ground onslaught.

 

At least 70 Palestinians were killed in several Israeli airstrikes that occurred on Monday outside Khan Younis following the evacuation order, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which cited data from Nasser Hospital.

 

According to Associated press news agency, the area is part of a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee to throughout the war. Much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say. About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel’s estimates. That’s more than half Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million.

 

AP journalists who observed the bodies at the hospital reported that at least five people were killed by airstrikes overnight in Zawaida, central Gaza. This occurred further north. A mother, a father, and three children were included in the tally, which the Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah confirmed.

 

The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The U.N. estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

 

The war began with an assault by Hamas militants on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 115 are still in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.